In Plain Sight
by Silly Twin Stars
Summary: In a world where everything is black-and-white until you find your soulmate, one learns to navigate in shades of gray. When Soul, an agent tasked with recruiting operatives for the FBI's tech division, gets a tip about Maka, a sharp-witted hacker flying under the radar, their story is bound to be a colorful one. For SoMa week 2018's 'complementary' theme.
1. Feels Like Summer

Hello, reader babes! Hope you are all well. Here's a new thing that attached itself to my brain and wouldn't let go. This story is fully borne of that "FBI agent watching me" meme, because the premise was so ridiculous that I couldn't forget about it.

I'd like to declare that I have done absolutely no research whatsoever for this story. Any similarities involving actual FBI surveillance/recruitment procedures are purely coincidental. ;)

Finally, thanks so much to jaded_envy, makapedia, Alliope & piercelovewonton for the eyes, and to jaded and kat for listening to me scream about this story every few days. :) Hope you enjoy!

* * *

The summer heat is suffocating, even in black and white.

They've been cramped up here for hours, pamphlets scattered across the floor, tiles stark white in the fluorescent lights. It's almost cruel, the irony of such a cold, unforgiving place completely _devoid_ of air conditioning.

August heat in Washington D.C. is especially oppressive; humid and lingering, it's the kind of heat that makes you feel like the devil himself is rising up from the concrete to greet you, hovering just out of reach.

Luckily, Maka Albarn loves the heat. And catching demons is what she does best.

"Gotcha," comes a triumphant murmur from a corner of the room next to the window, where slanted light from the blinds mixes in with the fluorescents. A pair of eyes shines brightly behind a laptop screen, victoriously narrowed.

"You found 'im?" A short-haired girl in another corner of the room almost jumps out of her chair with glee, bouncing around the fold-out table to gaze down at the screen.

"He's in Silver Spring," Maka murmurs, eyes scanning the page.

"Nice," comes another voice, belonging to a woman in a cowboy hat and a satisfied smile. She pushes in her chair, already reaching for her purse.

"Liz," Maka says, eyes narrowing. "You're going _now?_ Isn't that kind of far for you?"

"Nah," Liz says as she shuts her laptop with a snap. "That's not too far from our place, actually. Right, Patty?"

Patty interrupts her excited bouncing to nod. "We'll call Animal Control on the way over," Patty adds helpfully, and Maka's eyes narrow further.

"Like you did last time?" she says.

Liz's face tries its very best to not slide into a grimace, and it earns a C+ for effort.

"We… handled it," she says, drawing out the _hand_ like she'd rather _hand_ this conversation over to someone else which, incidentally, Patty takes her up on.

"And we couldn't have done it without you!" She elbows Maka in the ribs, which is meant to be affectionate, but it still leaves Maka wincing. "Our Master Hacker- hey, it's _true!_ " she continues before Maka can interject. "Best in the business!"

"If this were a business, you'd think we'd have more money," Liz drawls as she grabs her sunglasses and perches them on her head. "You ready?"

"Yup!" Patty gives Maka a quick hug and follows Liz out the door, both of them waving their farewell.

"Be careful!" Maka calls after them. "And _call me_ when you get home!"

"We will!" Patty yells from the other side of the open window, which is what she says every time, before she promptly and dependably forgets to call.

Liz starts the pickup with a familiar roar. As the rumble of the truck fades into silence, Maka finds herself gazing back at the screen, at the satellite image of a home down a long country road.

"Silver Spring," she says to no one. "I wonder if the water is really silver there."

"... Dunno," comes Liz's voice from her portable speakers, sitting innocently on the folding table where she'd left them. "If you ever meet your _better half,_ you can let us know!" From the speakers comes a chorus of laughter and Patty making smoochy sounds, little pops puncturing the air.

"Will you quit _bugging the room_ when I'm still here?!" Maka demands, throwing a pencil at the speakers.

"But we get so many good soundbytes!" Liz's faux indignation crackles through the speakers.

"Especially the ones of you _snoring-_ -" Patty says.

"Will you let me catch some more bad guys in peace, please?!" Maka says. "And you snore too, Patty, don't give me that-"

"I _snuffle_ , thank you!" she cheers, and Maka bites back a smile.

"All right," she concedes, and the two of them laugh.

"Don't stay up too late, okay?" Liz says, and Maka nods, even though they can't see it. "We'll call."

"You better," Maka says, and as the little light on the speaker fades away, she lets an easy smile spread over her face as she gets back to work.

At 9 o'clock the next morning, laptop screen still open, she snores gently against the table as her phone lights up with a voicemail.

* * *

At 9 o'clock, Soul Evans wakes up drenched in sweat. (Not from a nightmare, just from August. Which is, in many ways, still kind of a nightmare.)

It's just close enough to fall for him to really resent the summer. Even though it's still early, morning sunshine arcs through his blinds, branding little warm lines on his arms and bathing the music posters on his walls in bars of light. The entire wall behind his bed is a homage to the _good shit_ \- a sprinkling of indie, folk, jazz - as well as Weird Al, who is currently glaring down at him, eyes illuminated by a box of sunlight like the billboard in The Great Gatsby.

Receptive as he is to Weird Al's judgement, he slides out of bed, scoffing before leaning down and picking up his phone, which is still stuck in his pants pocket from the day before.

"...Huh?"

Stuck in his sauna room, clad in shark boxers, with Weird Al's gaze upon him, Soul wipes his eye with the back of his hand and blinks, staring down at his phone again and finally registering the time on the screen.

" _Shit._ "

He does an awkward dance into his pants, and tugging them on causes his phone to fall out of his pocket again - the cross he must bear for wearing skinny jeans in the summer. On the screen now reads a message, in angry all caps: WHERE ARE U? THE KID IS IN TODAY SO U BETTER BE ON TIME.

As his motorcycle skids into the parking lot at 9:18 a.m., he is most certainly not on time. When he slinks into the boardroom at 9:23 to mounting feelings of dread, he makes a feeble attempt to remind himself that ultimately, time is all an illusion anyway.

"Evans," says a calm but clearly displeased voice - which, to be fair, is what The Kid sounds like all of the time, so he's not quite sure how to take it. "Nice of you to join us." Striped hair turns its way back to the table. "Barrett was just updating us on the July recruitment numbers."

Soul chances a glance at Barrett - who literally no one calls Barrett, for the record, because he goes mysteriously deaf until people call him by his code name, Black*Star. With a star in the middle.

 _"The middle star is silent, but very important,"_ he'd said once. _"I get it. Like the k in knife,"_ Soul had said, to which Black*Star had replied, _"there's a k in knife?"_

They're an odd bunch, the FBI. Sharp as hell, but some of them are weirder than good 'ole Al himself.

"As I was saying," Black*Star says, shooting Soul a look. "Numbers are down. Way down. You gotta step up and find us some fresh meat, newbie."

It's true; none of his contacts have brought him anything in weeks. It's been a dry summer.

"Look," Soul explains. "Nobody's thinking about joining the FBI right now. Everyone's on vacation, all of my sources are lying on the beach sipping cocktails-"

"You'll be able to join them soon, if you like unemployment," The Kid says lightly. "It's not personal, and it's not a threat," he adds as Soul winces. "Our tech division is swamped, and they can't handle the workload. We need operatives, and we need good ones. So recruit us some, or it'll be your job on the line."

Soul hadn't expected an ultimatum like this at 9:43 a.m., and clearly neither had Black*Star, who's looking between the two of them with his mouth slightly agape.

"Listen, Kiddo-" Black*Star says. The Kid stares at him blankly. "Uh. Sir Kid… Your Kidness-" The Kid's gaze turns to pure ice, and Black*Star quits while he's behind. "A-anyway, Soul here's a great recruiter. He'll find us some good meat, I know it. Especially since _I'll_ be there to help him out!"

Soul glances at Kid again, who seems to be weighing whether or not to clock Black*Star for legitimately referring to him as _Your Kidness._

"I hope so, for both of your sakes," The Kid says, and Black*Star blanches. "Now tell me more about those numbers."

As Black*Star starts to yammer on about recruitment again, face considerably paler than before, Soul pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He sends a message to many, many people, all of his little birds, hoping for his _job's_ sake that he'll get some kind of response.

[[ need a name. send me whoever youve got ]]

The meeting adjourns late (likely since it _started_ late) and Soul walks back to his cubicle with his very annoying boss in tow.

"I even sent you a text," Black*Star says woefully from behind him. "You couldn't make it on time just _once_?"

"That's rich, coming from someone who's never here before 10-"

"Is that the way you talk to your superior, pleb?" But he can almost _hear_ Black*Star's face break into a grin as they sit down in their neighboring cubicles.

"Of course it is," Soul says, turning on his computer. "Especially when I see him shitting his pants at someone whose name is literally The Kid-"

"Hey, I'm not scared of anybody!" Soul can imagine Black*Star's determined fist-clenches on the other side of the cubicle. "But he's in charge of my _livelihood_ , dude, and I've got a family to provide for. The-"

"The black-haired goddess," Soul says along with him, mimicking his swoon. "I've heard."

"You're cranky," Black*Star observes. "We still gotta find you a _Soul-mate_." Soul responds to this familiar jab by turning his gaze to his desktop, which is now updating at a snail's pace.

"Whaaaat?" Black*Star says, peeking over the cubicle, spiky hair framing his face. "You usually have _something_ to say to that-"

"Dunno what to tell you," Soul mutters, eyes still on the screen. "Not really interested, and it's not really likely, anyway. You're the 33%, Black*Star. The rest of us are condemned to a newspaper life."

Black*Star raises a confused eyebrow at him, to which Soul replies, "Black and white? Right?"

"Ohhhh," Black*Star says, drawing it out. "Yeah." His eyes brighten. "And in your case, there's a little bit of 'red all over' too-"

"Huh?"

"Nooooothing," Black*Star says, sinking back into the cubicle sea, but he's _cackling_ , the way he does when he thinks he's said something impossibly clever.

Soul rolls his eyes and watches the update bar crawl forward, then glances down as his phone as it lights up with a text.

"...I'll focus on keeping my job first," he says.

* * *

"Agh!"

Maka taps her fingers against the keyboard absently, tapping her other hand against the table in frustration.

"I don't get it," she says to no one, eyeing the black box of code that sits on the screen, taunting her.

"Here, take a break." From behind her comes the familiar thump of file stacks being tossed to the ground, and she swivels around in her chair to see Liz, sunglasses askew on her head, cowboy hat abandoned for the moment as she sets down a massive box.

"What are these?" Maka asks, picking up a flyer that features numerous sad-eyed pets and reads _Eastside Animal Trackers: Hurt One of Us, and Death Will Find You._

"New propaganda," Liz says with a wink. "I'm meeting with the head office to get them approved today - whatcha think?"

"They're uh…" Maka takes in the skull clip-art that borders the page. "Very intense."

"That's the goal," Liz says, pulling out her laptop. "Trying to scare people into submission so that we can have a nice, relaxing fall. The printer _assured_ me that the word Death is in red. And it better be, 'cause I had to pay an extra 10 cents per copy for that shit."

Maka laughs. "Very dramatic. It's great. Hey Liz…"

"Sup?"

"Where's Patty today?"

"Ice cream," Liz says as she pulls out her portable mouse. "You know, the job that actually pays her money."

"Ah, yes." Maka smiles. "I can't believe I've never asked - do you not have any other jobs?"

Liz looks a little wary for a second, shoulders tensing, but eventually she says, very evasively, "I dabble in some things, here and there."

There's a clear implication to drop it, so that is what Maka does. Even with the strangeness of the exchange, they soon fall into a comfortable silence, Maka returning to wrestle with technology while Liz pulls out a file and starts going through it, rotating between the file and her laptop. Every few minutes, she's clearly consulting something else, however, as she keeps chuckling to herself.

Maka throws her a couple of questioning looks that Liz just shakes her head at, until finally, after one particularly choking laugh, Maka demands, "What is so _funny_?"

"I'm just uh… catching up with a friend, sort of. Sorry. I'll be chill."

"It's okay," Maka says. "Old friends are great."

"Eh, he's not really an old friend," Liz says. "It's kinda like… one of those new friends that feels old. Y'know?"

Maka smiles. "Yeah. I know what you mean." But as she gazes back at the screen, her face falls again.

"'...What's up, Master Hacker?" Liz asks. "What's got you stumped?"

"It's just this program," Maka says with a huff. "I can't get it to do what I want it to do. I've been trying to get into a satellite for like three hours to find a location on this guy, and I can't do it."

"You're trying to hack a _satellite_?!" Liz exclaims, though her face smooths out quickly enough. "Eh. I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"I'd just been thinking, if someone were to run for it, I could stay on them. I know there's a lot more I could be doing to catch these people." Maka pauses, chewing on her lip, weighing what she should say next. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," Liz says, closing her laptop to give her her full attention.

"...Honestly, I've been thinking a lot about how big of a difference I'm actually making, cooped up in the EAT office. I need more resources, and more people to bounce ideas off of. It's not that I don't love it here!" she interjects, as Liz's expression falls. "I just feel like I could be-"

"Doing more?" Something is stirring behind Liz's eyes, but before Maka gets a grasp on it, it's gone, replaced by her normal steely stare. "With a more precise goal? As part of a team, maybe?"

"...Yes," Maka says, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Exactly. How did you-"

"Mm. Heard it before." Liz shrugs dismissively, turning her attention to the flyer at her side. Maka watches her for another moment and then swivels back to the computer. "But hey," Liz adds from behind her, "Sometimes you've gotta start small, right? It leads to big things."

"Yeah." Code starts to whiz beneath her fingertips once more, eyes alight with tiny screen-boxes as she falls back into focus. "I think I just might… be ready for a bigger thing."

As she resumes her coding, Liz's eyes flick up to look at her again, hand stilling against the paper.

* * *

"Eater."

He needs no further introduction; Liz is the only one who still uses his code name.

"sexypistol888," he throws back."Whadya want?"

She makes an unimpressed noise on the other side of the line. "Polite and _nosy_ as ever, I see," she says cooly, and his lip curls into a smirk. "When are you gonna drop that?"

"Listen. Why you still had AIM downloaded in 2016 is beyond me." He twirls his keys around his finger, affecting boredom. "Cover your tracks, slacker. Getting access to your old screen names was too easy."

"Yeah, alright," she says. "Ain't proud of it. It's _almost_ as humiliating as your old livejournal entries."

His smirk dissolves into a surprised scowl. "Wait. _What? How the-_ "

"Slow your roll, _slacker_." Her smile carries through the phone, and he hates it. "Is that how you treat someone who's callin' you in a favor? I promise I won't quote _anything_ if you behave."

This gives him pause, as Liz is the first person to bring him a name since he sent out that text, so he decides to ignore this bright new and shiny _total invasion of his privacy_ and opts for being an Actual Professional™ ... which does not suit him, and Liz knows it.

"Contact details?" he says with a grimace.

"Very good. Already sent." She chuckles as he tabs over to his inbox and skims the information.

"... She's already in D.C.?" he says in disbelief. Most of Liz's contacts hail from other, stranger corners of the globe.

"Only a couple of years outta college, too," Liz says. "Just like you. Newbie."

He grumbles at this. "A newbie whose first mission was to get _you_ into the game, don't forget."

"Surely," Liz confirms. "Though… I got a somewhat steady paycheck out of that, and you got a pain in the ass who calls you every couple of months, so who's the real winner here?"

"You're not wrong," he mutters as he skims the rest of the document. "Hey - no photo?"

"Nope. She likes her privacy. I'll let you loot through the rest. Oh- and Eater?"

"Yeah?"

"Watch out for this one. She'll out-hack you if you give her the chance."

He scoffs, keys stilling in his hand. "Tch. I'd like to see that."

With a promising contact finally in his sights, Soul initiates stage 1 of the FBI recruitment process: the surveillance period. Seeing what hackers are capable of _without_ a test is a nice first point of entry, says the FBI. It's easier to throw them them curveballs when the time comes.

She's mostly online in the middle of the night, which suits Soul just fine. A nine to five work schedule is for squares, anyway, and staying at the office through the night doesn't bother him if he's got the coffee machine. Honestly, he's happy to embrace a nighttime surveillance schedule again, especially after the last recruit. Ox Ford had had a schedule like clockwork - up at six, asleep by nine - which, despite its comfortable predictability, was also boring as hell.

Now, he is graced by the distinctly unpredictable nature of 3 a.m. cat videos mixed with afternoon Tai Chi workouts - and in between, some _very_ interesting code.

He's never seen someone hack the way that she does. Most people try to find a back door, a silent way to creep into the system to access the information they need. She, on the other hand, knocks down the back door like she owns the place, whizzing past whatever security measures they have in place with zero subtlety, relying either on her victim's ignorance or simply butting through with sheer force of will.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, her code does remind him _slightly_ of someone else.

"Black*Star, look at this."

His boss appears behind him in milliseconds. He refers to this as his 'ninja approach' and it is guaranteed to give Soul a hernia every fucking time.

"Whoa," Black*Star says, leaning in over Soul's shoulder. "This the new meat?"

" _Jesus._ Y-Yup," Soul affirms after properly adjusting his heart rate and sending Black*Star a glare for good measure.

"She's good," Black*Star says in disbelief, ignoring him. "Not as good as _me_ , but-"

"My source warned me about her," Soul says dryly. "Said she'd outhack me."

Black*Star bursts out laughing, clapping him on the back. "Man. I hope she does, newbie. For both of our sakes, I really hope she does."

The surveillance process continues for several days without a hitch, and in addition to her code, Soul learns several other interesting things about his potential new recruit: she's a Vegas native, transplanted to the east coast. She apparently has a cat, which explains the whole 'save all the animals' shtick that she's got going on. Her music taste is _terrible_ ; he is convinced she subsists only on top 40 dubstep remixes, and he's inclined to give the surveillance period up early just to have an excuse to absolve himself of his very persistent bass-induced headache. For someone so private, he's learned quite a lot.

And yet, he still hasn't managed to get an actual visual on her; their database system has turned up nothing, which basically never happens. She doesn't seem to have any social media accounts. The old dependable 'post-it over the webcam' trick is a useful one, and hers is permanently in place.

So when he hears some fateful words on a Thursday afternoon, he's quick to seize the opportunity.

"Hey, Mama." A new voice appears in his ears and he jumps, flipping back over to his surveillance tab. "Let me get my camera set up."

It's the first time he's heard her speak, and something about it plants a seed of curiosity in him. He chalks it up to the fact that putting faces and voices to names is useful in this profession, and she's been so intent on hiding her identity that he finds himself a little intrigued.

Her mother is already there on the screen - light-haired, with lines at the corners of her eyes. Young, but with a stressful job of some kind, he deduces. Or a stressful life.

"Yo pleb, you comin' for lunch?" Black*Star's voice echoes distantly from the doorway. "We've got dooooonuts!"

"Uuuhhh, yeah, just a second." Soul stares down at his still-hot coffee mug in his hand, having only arrived at work an hour prior, thanks to _someone's_ desire to watch cooking videos from 4 to 7 a.m. He really should have given up on watching for anything interesting after she pulled up a fourth recipe for butter chicken. All it had done was make him hungry.

And as Soul sits there, pondering whether Black*Star had meant that his _entire_ lunch would consist of donuts, Maka clicks on her icon and makes her face appear in full screen.

There's the unexpected, and then there's the flat-out unthinkable, and from one blink to the next, the _flat-out unthinkable_ happens.

Before Soul's eyes, the world transforms, the screen suddenly bombarding him in a surge of unfamiliar sensations as a strange… _sharpness_ seizes his senses. A hazy white (or what he _thinks_ is white) decorates the sides of his vision, everything blurring into a whirl. He blinks furiously, confused, legitimately wondering if he's having a convulsion or something, until everything slides back into focus.

He takes a deep breath, and then another. Heartbeat pounding in his ears, he takes in the tabs on his screen, with little strange icons that he recognizes, but now have little bursts of… of something new. He gazes down at his desk, at the strange vividness of his coffee cup and of his coffee which, oh, he's managed to spill entirely down his shirt thanks to his trembling hand.

"Shit, shit, shit, _shit. Shit._ " He jumps up, only now registering the searing heat leaking through his shirt, and flutters his button-down away from his torso, cringing. As he gets up, instinct telling him to grab a napkin or something despite the presence of infinitely more pressing matters, he glances as the screen again, and there is a question he immediately needs answered.

"Black*Star," he croaks, and he coughs, clearing his throat, urgency forcing his voice into cooperation. "Black*Star!"

For once, he is grateful for the ninja approach.

"What, pleb? Oh hey, new meat finally showed herself! _Nice._ "

Soul turns to see Black*Star with a half-eaten donut in hand and almost gets dizzy again, the potency of _whatever color that is_ _on his head_ causing Soul to take a literal step back, knocking into his chair. But he ignores that, ignores everything except for the question on his mind, because there's something he has to know, right now.

"Black*Star." He points to the screen, to the… the _hue_ of something on the screen. "What... what color is that?"

"What, her eyes?" Black*Star says, little bits of donut spilling from his mouth. "They're green, why?"

Soul says nothing as he tries to grapple with what _exactly_ is happening at this moment. His coffee-soaked shirt and his boss's strangely vivid hair choices sit in his peripheral as he looks at the ground helplessly, waiting for Black*Star to put the pieces together.

It doesn't take long.

"Wait," Black*Star says. His face slides into the wickedest, most conspiratorial grin Soul has ever seen. "...What do you mean, what _color_ is that?"

* * *

Thanks so much for reading! See you in two weeks ;)


	2. Somebody's Watchin' Me

Hey friends! Welcome to chapter 2! Much love to makapedia, jaded_envy and piercelovewonton for their eyes on this chapter! Hope you enjoy! :)

* * *

It's been three days, and in theory, nothing has changed.

Soul wakes up late again, worms into the same pants, and drops his phone while putting on said pants. At work, his computer loads like molasses as he nurses a coffee cup, staring at the update bar through sleep-heavy eyes. He sits at the same desk, with the same task: wasting his life away, monitoring his newest recruit.

This is all well and good - except, of course, for the fact that _everything_ has changed.

It's all so strange. He still looks at all of the same things every day, but it all feels unfamiliar. He still hasn't gotten the hang of which colors are which, though he can remember some better than others. Thanks to many frantic Google searches involving color wheels, he now knows that Black*Star's hair is blue, and that the posters in his room are almost _all_ red and black - an enjoyable coincidence.

The second-biggest shock of that day (after the initial Big Shock) had been the realization that his hair is _actually just white_ , which he'd initially found to be a betrayal, a waste of his newly acquired sight, but in the past couple of days, he'd come to find it sort of comforting. A dash of familiarity in the sea of colorful unknowns.

Surveillance, at least, had gone back to normal. Maka keeps her face hidden, and he watches her navigate Google Maps like a pro as she seeks out her next target. Now, however, he is all too aware of the greens of the parks and the blues of the water on his screen.

He is also aware that the sprinkles on Black*Star's donut are bright pink, which he knows because they are currently spilling onto his desk from where his boss leans over him.

"How's she doing?" Black*Star says, making zero effort to hide the obnoxious grin plastered on his face.

There'd been something of an unspoken agreement not to bring up the events of the past couple of days, but the accord is flimsy, and Soul has begun to feel Black*Star's _gloating_ trickling in.

"After a guy in Alexandria today," Soul says cooly, ignoring Black*Star's tone. "Found him through tips on Reddit."

"She's a Redditor?" Black*Star asks.

"No. She's not," Soul says with a sigh. "She's not an anything."

"What do you mean? You've gotta have _something_ on her, after watching her for a week-"

It's frustrating, what he's learned - and hasn't learned - in the past few days.

"I mean, I _do_ ," he says. "She's just… all over the place. She has no accounts and everything is proxied like crazy. And I can't figure out where she comes up with her information half the time, she's so fast. Seriously." He gestures to the top of her screen. "She has like, a million tabs open at once, and she uses them _all_."

"Must make it hard to get to know her," Black*Star says with a wink, and Soul scowls.

"I'm not trying to get to know her," Soul grumbles. "I'm trying to _recruit_ her."

"I love this," Black*Star says, clutching his hands together, and Soul watches their fleetingly crafted ceasefire start to crumble. "A mystery woman. It's perfect for you."

Soul groans. "What the hell is that supposed-"

"Oh, come on, dude, you're like the close-est book ever," Black*Star chides. "All sulky and quiet all the time-"

"Better than obnoxious and _loud_ -"

Black*Star confirms his point by letting out a barking laugh. "Look, dude, all I'm saying is, _fate's_ on your side with this one, and-"

"Look," Soul says with a sigh. "Can you chill with that? I'm just… not bothered by this whole… color thing." He will not - cannot - say _soulmate thing_ , for reasons he hasn't fully investigated.

"You're not bothered," Black*Star repeats. "...You're not even a little curious about her?" He holds his thumb and index finger up in the physical approximation of _little_ and brings them towards Soul's face, which he swats away.

" _No_ ," he insists. "I need a job. That's all I care about."

"Oookay," Black*Star says with a shrug. "But if I were you, I'd be _dying._ "

"Yeah, well." Soul shrugs back as he turns to his computer again. "It... just doesn't matter to me, okay?"

… In other news, Soul is a filthy liar. He's so curious about her that he can barely stand it.

Luckily, observation is his forte - gleaning lots of information from very little data is one of his talents, and that's what he's done, difficult as it has been. While her in-your-face coding style has all but stumped him, this tells him that she's insanely smart. And resourceful.

...And bullheaded. Definitely bullheaded. He knows that she's imaginative - her coding _and_ her recipe searches have taught him that. She's also _picky_. She'll comb through a million butter chicken recipes until she finds the one she wants.

This whole thing is inspiring a change in him already, and he hates it. He'd actually looked _forward_ to coming into work today, of all things. The little seed of curiosity she'd planted in him for the past week has blossomed overnight, and it thirsts for information. Suddenly every little thing she searches has become a window into her personality, another clue to figuring out who she might be.

He's never _cared_ about a recruit before, never had any emotional connection to what the person on the other screen was doing. And it's a frustrating feeling, because for the first time, it leaves him feeling guilty about _doing his goddamn job_.

He clicks out of his surveillance window and stares up at the ceiling, the familiar unease that's been there for the past three days roiling in his gut, because it was _not supposed to be like this._

At the root of the matter… he doesn't know her at all. And yet, it feels like he's _wronging_ her, knowing that he can see color, and she can't.

* * *

Maka is not a morning person by _any_ means, but if she happens to roll over just before sunrise, she makes an exception.

Pulling her eyes open is still a challenge, though, and the only thing that makes this morning slightly more bearable is Blair. Her cat had nuzzled into her neck around 4 in the morning, when it had finally cooled down enough to be in physical contact with another living being. With a yawn, Maka sits up, causing Blair to mewl her protest.

"Tea time, pretty girl," she offers as explanation, shrugging into her bathrobe. She picks up Blair with a hand and cradles her in her arm as she carries her into the kitchen.

It's still too hot for English breakfast, so she settles for an iced chai. Blair crawls up and perches on her shoulder as the tea steeps, licking at a paw. As they wait, Maka basks in the coolness of the tile on her feet, the birds chirping their daybreak calls outside. Once she adds ice to the tea, Blair jumps down to the floor to explore the apartment and Maka takes the tea out onto the back porch.

 _Porch_ is a loose term. There's only room for one-and-a-half people, though this is perhaps exacerbated by the myriad of plants she has out here - a mixture of her own purchases and gifts from Papa. Nestled in her menagerie, she turns her eyes toward the sky.

Maka still finds sunrises magical, even in black and white.

Shades of gray soar above her, spreading from the white semicircle of light that begins to build on the horizon. It's the closest thing to color she can imagine; every single shade of gray placed on display, a smattering of every hue she knows painted across the sky.

And like so many times before, she's hit with the bittersweetness of seeing something so beautiful, but knowing that she could be seeing it… better. More completely.

Blair eventually follows her out onto the porch, making a show of sniffling at every plant before sprawling out to soak up the coolness of the concrete.

"What do you think, Blair?" Maka asks, nudging her with a foot. "Think I'll ever get to see a real sunrise?"

Blair sniffs at her foot and sneezes, so the verdict must be inconclusive. Maka sighs as she pulls herself out of the chair, leaving the tea mug on the kitchen counter and heading to her bedroom to fetch her laptop.

Lying down on the couch with the computer in her lap, gray rays of sunlight starting to seep in through the windows, she pulls up Notepad and makes a little to-do list for herself for the day, thinking of yesterday's conversation with Liz. Of finding bigger things.

She makes enough to live on... most months, anyway. Although… she usually has to dig into her savings a bit. But rent isn't getting any cheaper in this part of D.C., and the notion of Papa helping pay her rent for these past couple of years weighs heavily on her conscience.

The idea of being reliant on someone else has always been a tough pill to swallow.

"Colors can wait," she mutters. "I'll focus on getting a job first."

* * *

"... A job, huh?" Soul murmurs as he pulls up his surveillance tab, the corner of his mouth pulling up wryly at the irony. He watches as she scans Monster for all manner of tech jobs, all of which she is vastly overqualified for, in his professional opinion. But the surveillance period still has three more days to go, and so he will wait, preparing for the appropriate moment.

It's a relief, but it's also daunting, the idea that he's going to start to _interact_ with her. This is exacerbated by the fact that while he's already thinking up potential tests, he's finding them trickier to create than usual. Liz had been right, Maka's hacking is _good_ , and there's very little he can think of testing her on that he hasn't already seen her do.

He is thus forced to do something he never does: he seeks out guidance from the big guns.

"Of course I'll help you out, _lovebird_ ," Black*Star crows, opening up his code client with what Soul can only describe as a very _unfortunate_ level of enthusiasm.

"Do not call me that again, ever," Soul says flatly, but Black*Star has already moved on, fingers flying across the keyboard.

Throughout the day, Soul continues to monitor. The Alexandria guy has been put away, and Maka is taking a well-deserved break that involves looking up twenty different recipes for microwave mug cakes. He can almost pinpoint the moment that she decides that mug cakes are too hot for summer, because suddenly up come thirty recipes for fruit salad instead, punctuated by the occasional Amazon search for cat toys.

In the late afternoon, Soul pops over to check on Black*Star's test. It's his typical work: loads of pop-up windows and flashy colors - which, now that he can see them, are even more horrifying than he could've ever anticipated. Black*Star is the master of the distraction - finding things to trip people up while they try to rework the code, forcing people to sift through a lot of gibberish to get to a hidden message.

"I'm pullin' out all the bells and whistles on this one, newbie," Black*Star cackles up at him. "And hey - take your headphones out when you run this. I wanna hear when you solve it."

When he's finally done, Soul attempts the nigh impossible task of giving the test a trial run _and_ keeping up with monitoring. With Maka's lightning fast tab-switching, he ultimately gives up on watching what she's doing to fully address his mock test. Despite its difficulty, it's actually _sort of fun_ \- though the pop-up windows are just as terrible and distracting as expected.

As he's nearing the end of the test, he hears the crackle of Maka's microphone coming on again, and he perks up with curiosity as her voice comes through the speakers.

"Hmm hmm hmm," she singsongs. "Okay, here we go. Grocery list. Milk, eggs, tofu-"

Somewhere in the back of his mind comes another mental endorsement - she's smart _and_ practical, it says - but he doesn't think about it. He can tell she's multitasking as she compiles her list - he can hear her voice getting louder and softer as she moves around her apartment, yelling out random foods to add to her list. He chuckles as he returns his attention to the puzzle, tapping away at Black*Star's ridiculous code as she adds items for what sounds like, given her searches from the day before, a recipe for vegan red curry.

Just as she's finishing up the ingredients, her voice fades from Soul's focus as he realizes... sweet, he's figured it out.

With a victorious punch of the enter key, Soul lets out a muttered " _yes_ " as a jubilant _YAHOO!_ erupts from his speakers.

He starts to laugh, because it _is_ pretty ridiculous, and he allows himself to feel exactly one second of triumph... before somehow, inexplicably, the echo of another _YAHOO!_ crackles on Maka's end of the link.

Next to him, Black*Star jumps out of his chair, blue hair exploding over the top of the cubicle wall. Both of them listen in horror as another _YAHOO!_ then echoes back through _his_ speakers, and dread sinks through him at the sound of Black*Star's scream bouncing back and forth between the connections before it cuts itself off mid-word.

An equally stunned silence meets his ears on the other end of the connection, followed by footsteps and a whispered, "huh?"

Silently, he moves his mouse over to check on Resonance - the back door program that the FBI uses to monitor.

It's down.

The two of them say nothing as Maka's voice comes over the speakers again: "...End task. Voice to text. Command: Read grocery list."

A robotic voice responds, "Grocery list. Milk, eggs, tofu, red curry paste, onion, snap peas, red pepper, coconut oil, yahoo, yahoo, yahoo, yahoo-"

"Did you do this?!" Soul mouths at Black*Star as he pulls up the program, and with a few quick keystrokes, it's back up again, though he can find _no_ reason why it should have gone down in the first place. It never has before.

Black*Star, still wide-eyed, shakes his head. To assuage himself, Soul puts in his headphones again and puts them on mute.

"What the _fuck_?!" he exclaims at Black*Star's furrowed eyebrows. But as he turns back to the computer, he realizes he's got bigger problems.

"Oh no," he says as Maka pulls up a program on her screen. "No, no, no no-"

He jumps into action, unblocking himself again and switching locations furiously on his proxy as Maka grabs hold of the brief connection they'd made and attempts to follow it back. A very real sensation of being physically chased envelops him, and he's literally panting as he jumps around through various locations before finally slamming the program back on.

He adds an extra firewall, even though he knows that if she can ever break through Resonance, a little insignificant firewall will not save him.

She loses him somewhere around Jakarta, and he breathes a sigh of relief, but it was too close a call.

He doesn't know her well yet, but he already knows that she's too smart to let this go.

* * *

Since the yahoo incident, Maka's been covering her tracks.

It's not that she _hadn't_ covered them. She's careful to clear logs, to purge search histories. But she's always been the hacker, not the hackee, and now, as she mines her computer for clues on her visitor from this afternoon, she wonders if she'd gotten complacent.

The only clue left behind had been a link back to a program called Resonance - something she's never heard of and that a couple of hours of searching had not given her any results for. The person using it had clearly been behind proxies, but once she'd lost the trail, all trace of the intruder had vanished.

She'd taken a long break that afternoon and early evening to go grocery shopping, as planned. She even elected to pick up four Yoohoos to spite the disembodied voice in her grocery list. When she'd gotten home, she'd turned her computer upside down looking for suspicious code, or malware, but none of her searches have turned up any odd back doors, loggers, or anything else to speak of. Her little laptop is functioning as well as ever, and any record of Resonance had vanished without a trace.

And yet, there's still a warning in the back of her mind, telling her that something is off.

After another day or so of feeling this way, she knows that she has to mention it to someone. She makes a point to completely uninstall the microphone on her computer when she does.

"Hey guys," she says, tearing her eyes away from Google Maps. "Do... you ever feel like someone's watching you?"

Liz and Patty both look up from their laptops, surprise coloring their faces.

"...Whaddya mean?" Patty says, and despite the smile on her face, there's a thin line of concern between her eyebrows.

"Like a ghost?" Liz says, eyes widening.

"Is someone following you?" Patty says, and the look on her face is so utterly terrifying - like she'd _kill_ someone with no reservations - that Maka's quick to put that train of thought to rest.

"No, no! Nothing like that," Maka says, and she goes on to explain what had happened the day before.

"...So, you think someone's watching you online," Liz says. "And... this person hasn't tried to… contact you at all?"

"No, no Nigerian Princes have emailed me or anything." Maka laughs. "It doesn't feel like a scam. Just like… someone's there."

"Maybe it's the FBI," Patty jokes, and Maka rolls her eyes. Liz doesn't laugh.

"Huh," Liz says, and there's something familiar about her expression, the same intensity that she'd shown when they'd talked about bigger things. "Well, that seems hella weird. I hope you figure it out."

"Yeah," Maka says. "In the meantime, I'll just focus on doing my job… I guess."

The three of them go back to work, but the knot in her chest doesn't feel any lighter.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Soul's phone rings, and the number is blocked.

The first time, he lets it ring into nothingness, and forgets about it - for a moment. And then it calls back, over and over, interrupting the very informative YouTube video on proxy tracing that Maka has been watching for the past 10 minutes.

Finally, despite every FBI-ingrained instinct telling him to _leave it the hell alone_ , he grits his teeth and picks it up.

"... Hello?"

"Jelly bracelets are so cool. I have every color. At least the labels say I do."

"Wha…"

"Wes hid my studded belt again," the voice plows on. "I'm not going outside without it. He doesn't understand that I have a reputation to protect. I can't show up with checkered vans and no belt, it's called _accessorizing_ -"

When realization hits him, it is heavy and instantaneous. " _Liz_ -"

"I don't care if people say Club Penguin is lame, I've got almost two hundred thousand coins and more Puffles than anyone else in seventh grade-"

 _"What are you doing on my Livejournal, Liz."_

"You deserve everything that's happening right now," she says flippantly. "I love this one - here you've just posted the entire lyrics to Amish Paradise, with 'enough said' at the bottom-"

"Excuse me, that is a Weird Al classic, and it _does_ speak for itself- and also, _what did I do_?"

"Stop being a _creep_ , Eater," she says, all joking instantly gone from her voice.

Silence falls between them. "... What?" he finally says.

"I don't know what you think you're doing over there, but I don't pass you people's names so that you can _watch them through their webcams_ , okay? You're supposed to be recruiting, not _peeping_ -"

"... What?!" he exclaims, totally affronted. "Not that it's your place to know anything about recruitment, _Liz_ ," he spits, "but this is routine. I'm not doing _anything_ outside of protocol."

"I don't care about your stupid protocol," Liz says. "This is a special case, and you will _not_ fuck around with her. I'm _not_ playing around. If you don't contact her in the next day, you will never hear from me again."

It _is_ a special case, though Liz does not know how true this is. But there are two things that he knows, in this moment. The first is that he needs Liz as an informant - she's got her hands in so many pots that she's a source he can't afford to lose. The second is a hunch, and he needs to confirm it.

"...You're friends with her, aren't you?" he says. "In real life. That's why you're fired up about this."

Her silence is all the confirmation he needs. "Twenty-four hours, Eater. Text me when you contact her."

The line goes dead, and as Soul crawls into bed, he begins to accept the reality that the surveillance period may be starting earlier than planned.

The next day, yet another thing happens to accelerate this.

"What is he doing here?!" Black*Star hisses as a familiar striped head of hair strides into their department. It's rare that The Kid would show up unannounced, and as Soul watches the stripes make their way around the cubicles, he scrunches up his face, hoping that they'll make their way past him-

"I need to speak with you both," The Kid's voice echoes from behind him, and Soul freezes, shoulders shooting up to his ears as he turns around.

"Sure thing, boss," Black*Star says, wheeling backwards into Soul's cubicle with another donut clutched between his sticky fingers. He _sounds_ aloof, but there's a _wheedly_ tone to his voice, no doubt a byproduct of their disastrous last meeting.

"I hear you're considering a new recruit," The Kid says, crossing his arms as he leans back against the wall.

"Sure are!" Black*Star says. "Soul did a great job with-"

"Yes, I've looked over your notes," The Kid says. "She certainly seems qualified. Did you happen to find anything on her in the database?"

For some reason, this feels like a trick question, so Soul opts for the truth.

"...No, actually," Soul says. "I did try."

"Did you ever think that _maybe_ there was a good reason for that?" The Kid asks.

Soul and Black*Star regard him in silence. It's another type of question that Soul hates, because it's _condescending_ , and because Soul never knows if he should actually respond to it. Luckily, The Kid saves him the trouble.

"As it turns out, her father is FBI," The Kid says, and Soul doesn't fully understand why there's dread sinking through his stomach, but it's there. "One of the higher-ups, I would guess, based on the length of the email chain I received this morning. Evidently, he's quite surprised at seeing her name in the pool. But he'd love for her to work here. He's been trying to get her to join forever."

"...So what does that mean?" Soul asks.

"It means a few things," The Kid says, standing up again. "First, it means that I will be assisting you with recruitment for the next little while."

Black*Star chokes on his donut in displeasure, but The Kid ignores him. "It also means that you will end the surveillance stage and start testing, active immediately."

This, at the very least, is a stroke of luck, given Liz's ultimatum the night before. "Understood," Soul says, and The Kid nods at him.

"Hey, uh, boss?" Black*Star says as The Kid turns to go. "Who's her dad?"

"His code name is Deathscythe," The Kid says. Instantly, Soul can see Black*Star's gaze burning into him out of the corner of his eye. "Anyway. I'll be back tomorrow to check on your progress. Have a pleasant evening."

"... What is it?" Soul says after The Kid walks away. Black*Star swivels around to face him with a gravely amused expression.

"You are soooo _screwed_ , newbie," he says, taking a moment to swallow down a giant gulp of donut. "I _know_ about Deathscythe and his daughter. He's… intense about her."

"So what?" Soul says. "He's not gonna come around here-"

"All I'm saying is, you'd better keep your _true_ _colors_ under lock and key, my dude. Because daddy's gonna _freak_ if he knows."

Soul stares at the ceiling, white and grey flecks in the tile reminding him of the life he once knew, bringing him back to simpler times.

"...I feel like I'm gonna lose my job no matter what I do," Soul mutters, and Black*Star claps him on the back sympathetically.

* * *

 **See you:** in two weeks! If you're enjoying, please feel free to drop me a line. :) Thanks so much for being here!


	3. It Never Gets Old

Hey friends! Here's chapter 3. Thank you all _so_ much for your reviews, favorites and follows. I'm so glad people are enjoying this story as much as I am. Let's get into it!

* * *

Soul puts on different pants today.

It's a conscious decision. At this point, his life has snowballed so far out of his control that he finds himself wanting to take the power back. He wants to _feel_ like the master of his own destiny, despite all of the recent developments in his life reminding him that the opposite is true. And if changing his pants is the way to do it, so be it.

Also, he feels like The Kid will notice if he wears the same pants in his presence for the third time in a row.

"Nice pants," The Kid says as he walks into the office.

"Uh," Soul says. "Thanks." _Yeesh._ Even when he's expecting it, it throws him off. It dawns on him that The Kid is even more observant than he is, which is a little unnerving.

"I'll be there in just a moment," The Kid says. It's… sort of considerate. It gives Soul a chance to mop up the spilled coffee on his desk and look slightly less like a disgruntled employee. He can give off the _impression,_ at least, that he's a diligent, hard-working member of the FBI.

Next to him, Black*Star is going ham on his desk with a disinfecting wipe, which is something he never does. Soul knows he's pulling out all the stops to impress their guest, and if Soul gets to reap the benefits of finally having a tidy cubicle-mate, he's not going to complain.

In moments, The Kid is hovering over them both as they hunch over the computer in Soul's cubicle.

"This is what you've already prepared, I take it?" He squints at the onslaught of pop-up windows. "It's horrifying."

"Thank you," Black*Star says, beaming.

"I already solved it once," Soul says. "It's tough, but she can definitely do it."

"It's fine if the first test is… a little simpler," The Kid says with a nod, and Black*Star drops his beaming to glare at him. "Let me give it a try."

The Kid speeds through the test, and then doubles back, tweaking small things in the code. The more he changes, the more Black*Star pouts.

"It was fine before," he grumbles at one point, munching bitterly on his donut and contaminating Soul's perfectly clean desk.

Soul, on the other hand, is taking mental notes, impressed at the finesse with which The Kid navigates Black*Star's monstrosity. By the time he makes the final tweaks, the whole thing is just as confusing, but more navigable, and-

"How did you make the colors _easier_ to look at?" Soul mumbles, mystified. A beat of silence passes before The Kid's yellow eyes lock onto him.

"...You can see color," The Kid says. It's another one of his this-isn't-a-question questions, only this one is less condescending and more… muted? Contemplative? It's hard to place.

"Oh, uh. Yeah," Soul says, eyes gliding over to meet Black*Star's.

"Interesting," The Kid says. "I don't remember seeing that in your file."

 _Shit._ Soul commands himself not to blanch, and is only moderately successful. "Uuuhhh. It's… new," he says, as Black*Star's eyes widen. "I guess I forgot to update my-"

"It's no problem," The Kid says, cutting him off. He pauses, and then asks, "How has that been, seeing color? I imagine you must feel relieved."

Soul realizes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that The Kid is trying to connect with him, but this is really not the right time - or _subject_ \- for him to be spilling his guts.

"Uh, here," Soul says, sidestepping. "Let's focus on the test for now."

"Of course," The Kid says. He doesn't press, and they continue their work in silence. Again, there's a _courteousness_ there that Soul had missed in his other times meeting him. It sort of gives him a new respect for him, one that's motivated by genuine likeability instead of fear.

Black*Star hasn't quite managed to process these positive personality traits, it seems.

"I cleaned my _desk_ for him!" Black*Star exclaims later that day when The Kid has gone to check on his other underlings. "And then he goes in and changes my code!"

Soul rolls his eyes. "He's the worst. How dare someone help you streamline your code?"

" _I know!_ " Black*Star says, and when Soul glares at him, he adds, "It's organized chaos, okay? It's how I operate."

Soul has his doubts about the _organized_ part, but sure. He has more pressing matters to deal with. The clock is ticking towards the twenty-four hour mark since Liz made her ultimatum, but he's balking.

"I... don't feel good about this," Soul says. "You should just run the test."

"Wait, why?" Black*Star says.

"It feels wrong, me running it," Soul explains. "It's gotta be like... a conflict of interest or something."

"So you _are_ interested!" Black*Star says with a wink, and Soul fights the urge to put his head on his desk. "Dude, c'mon. Just do it. Rip off the Band-Aid."

Soul nods glumly, because - and it _kills_ him to admit it - Black*Star is right. His job is at stake, despite whatever consequences may come.

And so, with his heart in his throat, he opens Resonance, connects to her computer, and sends the file. It's a feeling akin to the moment just before a bungee jump - a little terror, a lot of vertigo - as he watches the send confirmation pop up on his screen. He then pulls out his phone, and texts Liz to let her know the deed has been done.

[[ don't know what i was thinkin of ]]

[[ i guess i just wasn't too bright ]]

Less than thirty seconds pass before Liz texts him back:

[[ well, i sure hope you do better ]]

[[ next weekend on the price is right ]]

[[ … ight ight ]]

He chuckles, despite the nervousness pulling at his stomach. It comforts him that there's one other person in his life that can finish his Weird Al sentences.

* * *

Maka rolls over to midday sun - and to the yowling melodies of _unfed cat_ in her face. Blair expresses her displeasure from her perch on Maka's chest, claws sinking into the skin. Wincing, Maka pulls herself into a sitting position as she grabs Blair's paws and sets them gently in her lap, the crick in her neck complaining from spending the night on the couch.

"O-kaaaay," she groans, throwing her blanket aside as Blair prances into the kitchen to receive her breakfast like the princess she is. Cat nourishment administered, Maka steeps her tea, grabs a blueberry muffin from the package on the counter, and makes her way back to the couch, crossing her legs as she perches in the corner with her laptop.

She wants to get enough done to actually feel accomplished before she heads into EAT. With only a couple of hours until she goes in, there's plenty to do.

Although her computer loads, her normal startup screen does not. Instead, the only thing that awaits her on the screen is a pop-up window that reads: _Wanna Surpass God?_

She blinks for a moment and then stares at the window, eyes narrowed.

"...What."

None of the normal methods get rid of it. Rebooting, reconfiguring, and taking out the battery do nothing. Ctrl+Alt+Delete was never really a viable option, but when she tries it, she sees another program running in the background that immediately piques her interest: _Resonance._

Instinct takes over - she gets _mad_ , ripping off the Post-It that covers her webcam.

"Who _are_ you?" she demands, eyes locked onto the little circle at the top of her laptop, trying to glare whoever might be watching on the other side into submission.

She pops the Post-It back in place, and then thinks better of it, peeling it off again.

"Tell me who you are, and I'll click it," she challenges. " _If_ I like your answer."

After a couple of beats of stillness, a small chat window opens in the bottom right corner of her screen.

[[ YOUR WORST NIGHTM ]]

[[ ignore him, he's being dram ]]

[[ atic ]]

[[ I AM NOT ]]

[[ he is. being dramatic is all he knows how to do, so ]]

[[ EXCUSE M E ]]

She watches the _typing…_ appear and vanish from the chat box as a skirmish breaks out over the keyboard. It's very clear that she is talking to two people, and as the typing disappears for several seconds, she hypothesizes that they are in the same room. Finally, one of them seems to win out, and she gets this:

[[ we hear you're an ok hacker. we want to see what you can do. ]]

She squints at the screen, shifting warily in her seat so that the couch cushions creak. Forgetting that her camera is still on, she types:

[[ I don't trust you. ]]

[[ As expected. ]] is the response. This typing style is different than the previous two, and she discerns that another player has entered the mix.

[[ Very understandable. But we assure you the test is trustworthy, and so are we. We think that you might be a good fit for us. ]]

"For _who_?" she says aloud, and the person seems to expect this question, as they are already typing.

[[ Unfortunately, that is classified. For now. But if you would like to know more, there is a way to do that. ]]

Of its own accord, her cursor glides over to the pop-up and hovers over it.

Maka crosses her arms as she ponders this. She still doesn't trust them, but she _is_ curious. 'That is classified' sounds… governmental. _Official._ It intrigues her. And in the back of her mind, she knows that the more she learns about them, the easier they'll be to take down.

"Why bother?" she mutters, eyes locking back on to the camera. "What's in it for me?"

Silence in the chat, until:

[[ more than you bargained for, probably ]]

[[ And also, potentially, a job. ]]

"Huh," she says. It's hard to judge, but… both of those answers feel very _honest_. So she throws caution to the winds and clicks, already considering ways to get out of this if things go sour.

Her screen explodes in pop-ups, and she groans. Her first impression is that she's let in some next-level spyware, but as she squints at the barrage of windows, eyes flying around the screen, she quickly realizes something as a window full of code pops up in the left-hand corner of the screen.

This is a _test._

She lets out a surprised laugh and taps her fingers against the keyboard in anticipation.

"Okay," she says as she sticks the Post-It note back in place. "Let's see if you three stooges can stump me."

It's a piece of cake. The pop-ups are annoying but easily ignored, and within minutes she's coded them into submission, leaving only the ones that she actually _needs_ to solve the puzzle.

The whole thing takes less than fifteen minutes, and when she hits the final enter key, a familiar word jumps out at her.

" _YAHOO!_ " her computer shouts, and she freezes. The word is a confirmation of her suspicions over the last few days, but ultimately it's a relief, knowing that she hadn't been imagining it. And honestly, because of how easily she'd passed that test, she's feeling a little confident.

She walks into the kitchen and fetches one of the Yoohoos from the fridge. Peeling off the Post-It once more, she pretends to clink the glass against the camera, and takes a celebratory sip of the Yoohoo.

"Yahoo indeed," she says with a smile.

* * *

Maka finished _much_ faster than Soul had.

The three of them had watched like hawks as she navigated the test. Black*Star spent the entire time cheering her on like he was at a basketball game, and The Kid, despite being the pinnacle of professionalism, would still make the occasional noise that was half-amused, half-impressed at some of her coding choices.

Soul is both impressed and terrified at the ease with which she had rolled through everything, and it left him feeling stumped as to what the next test should even _be._ He'd thought about it all the way from work to the sushi place, and continues to mull over it as he peruses the menu.

He's not sure why he even bothers looking at the menu anymore. Thursday is the all-you-can-eat buffet at Megami Sushi, and that's what he always gets. It's become a weekly tradition, walking the few blocks from his apartment to the small restaurant - though this is the first time he notices that the sign hanging over the door is bright blue.

"Do you need more time with the menu?" asks a familiar voice, and he looks up to see the owner of restaurant, with her trademark kind smile and black ponytail, gazing down at him. "Or will it be the usual?" The knowing look on her face tells him that she already knows the answer.

"It's been a buffet kind of week," he says, and the lines at the side of her eyes crinkle as she smiles wider.

"You know what to do," she says, taking the menu out of his hands. "I hope this makes your week a little better."

And it _does_. He picks through the buffet with practiced ease, choosing all of his favorites - especially the salmon sashimi, of which he takes double his normal portion. Back at his seat, he indulges, still puzzling over the next test.

There's nothing that he can really test her on when it comes to coding itself; it's more the actual _application_ of her knowledge that matters. He already knows that she's smart and resourceful, but he needs to find a way for her to prove that in a quantifiable way - something he can bring back to The Kid that doesn't involve her recipe search history.

He picks at a California roll, eyeing the bits of crab in the center.

"Everything okay?" the owner asks, appearing at his side. "Is the sushi all right?"

"Oh, no, it's great," he says. "Actually- could I pick your brain on something?" They certainly don't know each other well, but he has few other people he can ask about this, and he wants to talk to someone who doesn't have a coding background.

She looks surprised, but takes a seat across from him. "Of course."

"I'm trying to… write a test."

"Oh! Are you a teacher?" she asks.

"Oh, uh." He fiddles with his chopsticks. "Not exactly. I'm just trying to come up with a way to test this person's knowledge, for a job. But I want to do it in a way that they'll do well, _and_ in a way that I can _know_ how well they're doing. You know?"

She takes a moment to think, tapping her chin. "Hmm, well I don't know much about tests," she says, "but I think the best place to start would be with you, not with the other person. They always tell you to stick with what you know, right? I'd design a test that I would want to take, something that appeals to me, and then work from there."

"Stick with what you know, huh." His eyes fall onto the California roll, and something clicks in his brain. "Oh. I… think I have an idea, actually."

She smiles, rising from the chair. "I'm glad I could help. I hope it works out for you."

As she turns to go behind the counter, he says, "Hey, thanks. I'm Soul, by the way."

"... Tsubaki," she says, holding out a hand for him to shake. "See you next Thursday?"

"Definitely."

In the final minutes of his dinner, surrounded by the food he knows best, he sketches out a plan.

"...A sushi roll," The Kid says the next day, frowning down at him.

"Yeah," Soul explains. "She's good at getting through walls, right? But we've only seen her do it in certain scenarios. So we give her different sorts of walls. We'll give her a new language to code in and a new puzzle to solve at each layer."

"... Not bad," The Kid finally says. "What do you have in mind?"

Soul pulls out the drawing and goes through the specs, pointing at each wall with a different set of code. The Kid listens attentively, suggesting edits as they go.

"... Will it actually _be_ sushi themed?" The Kid asks. Soul can't tell if he's joking or not. He senses that this may not be the last time this happens.

"Uh... yes?" Soul says.

"Very well," The Kid says. "Would you like my assistance with building it?"

"I... actually built it last night," Soul says.

"A surprising amount of productivity for a Thursday night," he says lightly, eyes narrowing.

"I was…" Soul stops, confronted by all the things he cannot say. Because he'd been miserable. Restless. Antsy to talk to her again now that surveillance had stopped. "...bored."

"Fair enough." The Kid nods. "Send me the file. I'll look it over. We can send it to her today."

Something stupid like _excitement_ jumps in the pit of his stomach, and he stamps it out as he transfers the file. Because of her, he's turning into someone who wants to work hard, and he's deeply unimpressed.

By midday, they're all crowded in Soul's cubicle again, ready to observe the next round of testing.

"Can you let _me_ type this time?" Soul frowns at Black*Star, who's smiling wickedly again. "She already knows there's three of us."

"All riiiiight." Black*Star claps him on the back. "I'll let you work your magic."

Soul can feel The Kid's eyes on their backs, but he doesn't comment. Soul shoots Black*Star a glare. The last thing he needs is he-who-notices-Soul's-wardrobe-changes catching on to the gloating.

[[ ready for round 2? ]] he sends into the abyss. The response is near-automatic.

[[ Yahoo. I thought you'd never ask. ]]

 _Witty_ is another characteristic he adds to the mental log, and he tries and fails to hide a small smile as he starts to type again. Black*Star's eyes are on him like a brand and Soul pointedly ignores him.

[[ all right, here goes. ]]

She's a natural. The only thing that trips her up for a moment is the final section of the test - the 'salmon' portion, incidentally - where she needs to slip into the system _quietly_. He'd done this on purpose, and she makes a point of turning on her microphone as she does this part of the test so that they can hear her thought process. Her confidence is insane, and the offhand way she talks about coding is both impressive… and revealing, because it's very clear to Soul that she's never had anyone to share this knowledge with before.

"What's the point of sneaking in?" she mutters at one point, which makes Black*Star high five the screen. Birds of a feather.

When she makes it to the end, she's rewarded with the image of a sushi roll for her troubles, and she bids them farewell with another Yoohoo salute to her webcam and adds, "I've only got two of these left. Let me know if I need to buy more."

"Let's get to work on the next one," The Kid says once her webcam goes dark. "... And she will need to buy at least one more."

After lunch, Soul comes back to his desk to find that an additional file that has been sent through Resonance. He scans the details of the file, searching for anything malicious or sneaky, but it seems totally benign.

When he clicks on it, the image looks the same. He draws up the edit log, and sees that there's been a text addition somewhere. Eyes roving the image, he zooms in intermittently, clicking on random spots until, nestled just where the rice and the salmon meet, is the most offensive phrase he's ever seen.

[[ Raw fish is gross, by the way. ]]

The _nerve_.

He closes out of the program, but in the face of pure betrayal, he's still trying not to grin. She's funny, and smart, and he's wary about it, because he's not sure how much of this is because he knows he _should_ like her, or how much is genuine attraction.

Nevertheless, he spends the rest of the afternoon pondering how someone with such terrible taste could possibly be his soulmate.

"O-kaaay." Black*Star pops his head over the cubicle wall around 4 o'clock, when most of the office has cleared out for the weekend. "Are you done brooding yet?"

"I'm not brooding," Soul mumbles.

"You're always brooding," Black*Star replies. "But this time it's extra bad. I can _feel_ it from over here. You're still up in your head about the new meat, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," Soul lies, like a liar. "I'm just tired."

"Come ooooon," Black*Star says. "We'll do a Friday beer thing. My treat."

Soul fixes him with a glare. "The last time you said that, we ran up a two-hundred dollar tab and you _forgot to pay_."

"I was young and immature back then," Black*Star says, waving a dismissive hand.

"It was three months ago."

"C'mon, it'll be fun!" Black*Star says. Soul is unconvinced. "I'll just have one," he adds. Soul has never been so unconvinced of anything in his life. "You gotta _relax_ , and who better to help you relax than me, Black*Star! The best relaxer of all!"

Soul is the least convinced person that has ever existed on God's green earth. And yet, somehow, he ends up at the bar anyway.

"Here ya go!" Black*Star says, plopping down two pints of something that looks very light and very cheap, but at this point, Soul is apathetic. He just wants to finish his drink so he can get out of here, back to the peace of his bedroom and the roiling guilt in his mind.

"Nice place, huh?"

"It's pretty cool," Soul concedes. He's never been to Death Brew before, but he likes the energy, which feels different than the typical hipster D.C. bars.

Unfortunately, unlike the hipster bars, the beer is absolutely awful.

"Piss," Soul mutters with a grimace after he takes a swig. "Absolute piss."

"Soooo," Black*Star says, already halfway done with his I'll-just-have-one drink. "How ya feelin'?"

"About what?" Soul asks.

"Everything!" Black*Star exclaims. "We haven't talked about it! You can see color now! Do you feel different? More star-powered?"

"Well," Soul drawls. "At first I thought that _all_ hair was really offensively bright, but after a week of seeing a lot of black and brown, I realized that it's just your shtick."

Black*Star lets out a booming laugh that startles the patrons at the table next to them. "Hey, I'm not the only one! See anyone else with bright white hair this week that's under 40?"

Soul bristles, sipping at his drink again to save himself the trouble of answering. As it is piss beer, it is an equally unpleasant sensation.

"But seriously, do you like it? Hate it? Was it everything you dreamed it would be?" Black*Star clasps his hands together.

"I… never really dreamed about it," Soul admits. It's always been more about sound than sight with him. "I was curious, I guess. And some parts of it are cool. Like being able to match clothes. And actually seeing the colors on traffic lights, or whatever."

"And a lady," Black*Star adds faux-casually, hiding his grin behind his glass.

Soul sighs. "Yeah. Someone who's supposed to be my _soulmate_ who I don't even know, and who I might get fired for talking to. Really cool."

"Dude. Did I ever tell you how I met the Black-Haired Goddess?" Black*Star asks.

"... No, actually," Soul says.

"So," Black*Star begins. "I was on the way home from tae kwon do. I was going for my red-and-black stripe - I know, the Great Black*Star hasn't always been a black belt, believe it or not. Anyway, I got my ass handed to me. I flunked _hard_. Totally obliterated. And I was walking home all bummed out. I knew I needed to do somethin' big to snap myself out of it. So I climbed up onto one of the buildings on the way home and started yelling out some hella validation."

Soul's heard enough of it at the office to know what he means. _I'm the best! No one can out-code me! Even on my worst days, I'm a star!_ All of his little pick-me-ups.

"Anyway, as I'm yelling, someone starts _clapping_ , down in the alley. She'd seen me first, and that was the first thing she thought of to do." It dawns on Soul that Black*Star has probably told this story many times, and it still sounds like he can't believe it. "I came down all bruised up and sad, and she still fed me dinner. What I'm trying to _say_ is," he concludes, "sometimes you don't meet under the best circumstances. But who cares?"

"My job cares," Soul says. "My bank account cares. My _sanity_ cares."

"Then ignore it, if you want." _If you can_ goes unspoken, but they can both hear it. "But you _do_ wanna know more about her," he says. "Don't you?"

Soul looks at him, weighing his options. But Black*Star had been honest with him, hadn't he?

"Yeah, I do."

"My _dude_." Black*Star grins, but his smile freezes in place as his eyes fix on the door. "Uh. Wanna start right now?"

"What're you-" Soul swivels around and catches a glimpse of dirty blonde pigtails entering through the door behind two other people.

"Uh, _no I do not_ ," Soul grits out as he slides under the table, crouching behind Black*Star's chair.

"Here," Black*Star says, standing up and shielding the door from view. "Bathroom. Dude, c'mon. Go around - no, go _around_ -"

They awkwardly run-tiptoe to the side of the bar, towards a curtain with a skull on it that leads into the hallway that houses the restrooms. As they disappear behind it, he realizes that he _knows_ one of those other people.

"I'll distract her!" Black*Star says.

"Wait," Soul says. "I know who she's with. Let me contact her. She can probably help."

"Whatever you say, chief." Black*Star gives him a salute. "And if you wanted to _accidentally_ come back out and have her see you-"

" _No._ "

"All right, all right." Black*Star slinks back through the curtain and, presumably, back to the table to nurse his piss beer.

Soul hides out in the bathroom, trying to ignore the pointy skull art in his stall that is giving him a staredown, and pulls out his phone.

[[ i'm at death brew. need to talk to you. come to the bathroom. ]]

* * *

After the Sushi Trial, Maka heads into EAT with only the _dregs_ of a work ethic left. Within an hour or two she's already done for the day, massaging her temples as she tries to peer at an increasingly blurry screen, and it would seem that Liz and Patty are feeling similarly.

"Okay. I'm oooover work today," Patty says, shutting her laptop. "Let's get outta here!"

"Where're we going?" Liz asks.

"Anywhere!" Patty exclaims. "It's Friday. Time to _chill._ " She reaches over and flips Liz's sunglasses down onto her eyes.

Liz's sunglasses gaze at Patty for another second before she also shuts her laptop. "All right. You drive a hard bargain, Patricia. Let's go out."

"You guys go ahead," Maka says. "I'm exhausted. I think I'll go back and-"

"Ohhhh no ya don't," Patty says, bounding over to Maka and hooking their arms together. "You've been yahooin' and yoohooin' and sushi'in all week, and we gotta celebrate!"

"Celebrate what, though?" Maka asks with a laugh.

"I dunno. Bein' _smart,_ " Patty says, dropping her cowboy hat affectionately onto Maka's head. "And being closer to somethin', even if you aren't sure what it is yet."

The way she's grinning down at Maka is contagious, and also ridiculously persuasive.

"She _does_ drive a hard bargain," Maka says to Liz as she drops the hat back onto Patty's head, and Liz grins. "Okay, fine. Let's go out."

Maka had always imagined that bars are a paradise for people who can see color - this one boasts a disco ball, neon signs, _and_ twinkle-lights above the bar itself. But even in black and white, Death Brew has a very specific energy. They haven't been here in awhile, but as they walk in, it's got the same grungy, beer-forever-on-the-floor vibe that Maka has always loved about it. There's nothing pretentious about this place, and Maka watches the disco lights dance their way around the bar, fluttering in and out of the easy conversations amongst the patrons.

There's a table near the center of the room that looks promising, next to a spiky-haired guy who has just returned to his seat with a big star tattooed on his arm. They quickly order a round of ciders from the bartender - a muscular man with cornrows and a big grin - and once the drinks appear, Maka holds up her glass.

"To being closer to something," she says, smiling at Patty.

"To something!" Patty cheers, clinking their glasses together and spilling cider down the sides of her glass.

"To something," Liz adds, and Patty's clink sends cider cascading down her glass as well. When she takes a swig, however, her phone lights up with a text, and as she reads it, she frowns.

"Everything okay?" Maka asks.

"Uh. Yeah," Liz says, eyebrow quirking as she rereads the message. "I'll just... be right back."

"Kay!" Patty says, taking another gulp of cider.

Maka watches Liz walk outside the bar, but once Patty taps her on the shoulder, they fall back into chatting about their plans for the weekend.

* * *

Soul hasn't received a text back, which is making him panic. He's considering asking Black*Star to see if Liz's phone is visible before he gets a phone call instead.

"Thank fuck," he says into the receiver when Liz's name lights up on the screen. "Hello."

"I see your 'thank fuck' and I raise you a 'what the fuck'," Liz says. "What the hell is this text? What am I looking at?"

"... Wait, where are you?" He'd fled so quickly that he hadn't seen them sit down, and he's terrified that she might still be at the table.

"Outside," she says. "Whaht, you think I'd be chatting with you in front of your recruit? Between the two of us, _I'm_ not the unprofessional one, remember?"

He grits his teeth at this, but he's still relieved. "Listen, can you help me? I need a distraction so I can get outta here."

"I don't get what the big deal is," Liz says. "She doesn't know what you look like, does she? Who cares if she sees you?"

He wants to say that quite a few people will probably care, including his boss, the entire FBI, the enigma known as Maka's father, and most of all, _Maka_ , but that's obviously not something he can bring up. "It's, uh. Protocol. 'Cause, you know. I'm good at following protocol."

She snorts. "Yeah, okay. How about instead of a distraction, you just wait there until she gets up to go to the bathroom. I'll text you."

The skull on the bathroom door continues to stare him down as he sighs. "All right," he says. "Just text."

"You worry too much," she says. "It'll be fine. I'll text."

He sends the message along to Black*Star as well. Despite his initial disappointment at not being able to cause a big scene, he agrees to text as well, just in case Liz's doesn't go through.

Soul lifts his headphones off of his ears and puts on some music while he waits it out, and he tries not to think about how ridiculous he looks, sitting alone on a toilet in a bathroom filled with skulls while he avoids his soulmate like the plague. Black*Star continues carrying on a perfectly normal conversation with him via text, which says _something_ about his social skills, though Soul isn't sure what.

[[ OF ALL THE BARS, HUH? WEIRD ]]

[[ yeah. i'm probably cursed ]]

[[ OR BLESSED ? WHY DON'T YOU TRY SOME OPTIMISM ON FOR SIZE, GRUMPY ? ]]

He's about to answer when two texts come in at once.

[[ now's your chance, go ]]

[[ GO GO GO SHE'S PEEING ]]

In all of his years in the FBI, it's the first time he feels like he's entering an unsafe situation as he creaks open the bathroom door. With the coast clear, he speedwalks out the door and back into the bar, meeting Liz's knowing eye and watching Black*Star fall into step with him.

"You're leaving too?" Soul mutters.

"Like I'm gonna stay here and drink alone?" Black*Star asks, rolling his eyes.

They're almost to the door of the pub when a booming voice echoes from the bar: " _Where the hell do you think you're going?!"_

Soul doesn't even turn back - focused as he is on getting out of here, he assumes the bartender is talking to someone else - until two hands appear out of nowhere and land on his and Black*Star's shoulders.

"What the- _No_ -"

"Oh, _shit,_ " Black*Star says, going limp against the bartender's grip. "I forgot-"

"Forgot to _what?!_ " But as soon as he says it, he knows. "You... forgot to pay the tab," Soul says lifelessly.

The disco lights are spinning, the music is blasting, and a bartender is dragging Soul and Black*Star backwards by their collars when the skull curtain ruffles, and Maka walks back into the bar.

* * *

See you in two weeks ;)


	4. Set Your Eyes To Mine

**Author's Note:** Welp, that wasn't two weeks! Life got away from me a little, as it tends to do sometimes. :) Thank you all for waiting, and I really hope you enjoy this one!

* * *

The curtain is black and white.

The curtain is black and white, the fabric gliding past Maka's hands as she reenters the bar. She slows her pace when she sees Liz and Patty facing away from her, staring at something in the corner of the room.

"...What'd I miss?" Maka asks warily.

"Oh! Uh." Liz jumps a little as she turns back around. "Not much." She looks to the side, drink to her lips.

"What do you mean, 'not much?!'" Patty counters, throwing her hands in the air. " _So_ much! A couple of guys just got busted for not paying their tab!" Her eyes shine with an almost aggressive glee.

"What happened?" Maka asks.

"The bartender was like _'hey you!'_ and ' _why I oughta-_ '" Patty punches a fist into an open hand, a sinister smile lighting up her face. "And now they're gonna _pay_."

Maka leans around her, eyeing the bar. From where she's sitting, she can only see one of the perpetrators - the guy with the star tattoo that they'd sat beside. The other is hidden behind the bartender's broad back - though she can see the arm of a leather jacket. Somehow, this heightens her irritation. Who wears a _leather jacket_ in August in DC?

"I hate people like that," Maka grumbles, shaking her head in disappointment. "It's so irresponsible."

As if in response, Star Tattoo exclaims from the bar: "Dude, we just _forgot._ Honestly." Maka rolls her eyes.

"Maybe they really did forget," Liz adds with a shrug.

Maka looks up at her, surprised. "You're very… forgiving today," she says lightly, eyes narrowed.

Liz shrugs again in response, still avoiding Maka's gaze. But Maka is, as always, curious to her core, and when the bartender moves to go around the bar, she cranes her neck to get a better look as Leather Jacket starts to turn around, moving to step around the bar.

Just as he turns, _another_ person moves to block her view and she makes a frustrated noise, trying to peer around a man with blonde hair, a million ear piercings, and some truly atrocious plaid pants.

"Ugh! _Move_ ," she grumbles, standing up on the little bar between her chair's legs for a more suitable vantage point.

Finally, from her perch on the chair, she can see him. And across the bar, as if in response, Leather Jacket's eyes flick upward - _straight_ to hers. As their gazes meet, the most bizarre thought tickles the back of her brain.

His eyes... are not black and white.

The world tilts sideways, and the high-top chair that she's standing on, already unstable, tilts with it. She blinks frantically, but as she starts to topple forward, an instant presence at her sides rights the chair, steadying her.

"I'm fine," she says automatically as they pull her back down, but she's not sure that she _is_ , disco lights leaving spots in her vision as her fingers dig into Liz and Patty's arms for support.

"What's wrong?" Patty asks urgently, eyes wide and... _vibrant_ , shining a few inches from her face.

Maka's eyes dart around the room in a million directions, taking everything in. It's not a paradise at _all:_ the neon signs burn, the disco lights scorch. Everything is heightened and so _precise_ , from the scuffs in the floorboards to the circles of water stains on the tables. Above the bar, the twinkle lights seem to wink at her knowingly, as if they'd known this would happen, heralds of the moment where everything whirls itself into place.

"Maka," Liz says, tearing Maka's attention from slow-motion twirl of the room. "Talk to us. What's happening?"

Confusion and doubt rise up to meet her, nearly swallowing her up. What _is_ happening? But instinct screams it at her; she _knows_ what this is. She'd asked for it many times, after all.

"I think… I'm seeing color."

She looks up at Liz, whose expression is now frozen, brain piecing together what Maka has just told her.

"...You don't say," Liz finally says, but she's doing a bad job of masking her shock, eyes flitting back up to the bar as a strange expression crosses her face. It's this reaction, above everything else, that brings Maka back to reality, and she remembers, with startling clarity, _why_ this has happened.

Maka rises back to her feet and starts to dig through her purse, fighting a sudden wave of nausea as the lights pass overhead, highlighting little punches of color in her bag: her lip gloss, her keychains, her sunglasses case. Finally, she finds what she's looking for and she slips out of Liz and Patty's grip, hard plastic clenched between her fingers as she marches up to the bar.

Her main priority is getting to the bar without getting sick, so she channels her all of her dizziness and doubt and confusion into one emotion - _anger_ \- and directs it towards one particular source.

The pained look on Leather Jacket's face becomes steadily more pronounced as she approaches.

"Hey." She taps the bartender on the shoulder and slaps her credit card on the bar, sliding it toward the till. "I'll pay for it."

She makes sure that all of them can hear the poison in her voice, and she fixes Leather Jacket with her most potent stare. The color of his eyes gives her a distinctly different kind of vertigo, but she won't look away.

"Dude. Nice!" says Star Tattoo, who is apparently immune to poison. "Thank-"

" _Not_ doing it for you," she grits out as she turns to leave. Her head is pounding now, but she pauses long enough to throw one last glare at the pair of them, even though Leather Jacket's gaze is now directed at his shoes. "I'm doing it because good people pay their tabs. Bring money next time."

Without waiting for a response, Maka spins around and stomps out of the bar, because she's mad and sick and because _someone who doesn't pay at bars can't be her soulmate_.

Being outside is an immediate relief, but the onslaught of color from the bar is still too much, and she doesn't make it far. Crouching down where the sidewalk meets the parking lot, she sits on the curb and puts her head between her knees, squeezing her eyes shut at the slow churn of her gut.

Time passes - she's not sure how much - but eventually, the door opens once more, the boom of the bass building and fading behind her, and she senses their presence at her sides.

"Hi," she half-mutters, half-groans, cheeks still smashed between her knees.

"Hey," Patty says sympathetically, and when Maka blinks her eyes open, colorful cowboy boots appear in her periphery, framed by the crook of her knee. The nausea makes a resurgence, and she closes her eyes again.

"...Nothin' like a nice quiet night at the bar, huh?" Liz finally says.

"Yeah. Real _relaxing_ ," comes Maka's muffled reply.

"...You wanna leave?" Liz asks.

"No," Maka says to the asphalt. "Not yet."

She's dimly worried that Star Tattoo and Leather Jacket will emerge before she can regain her composure, but she has the feeling that she's probably scared Leather Jacket, at least, into sitting still for a while. The thought gives her a grim satisfaction, which does not mix well with queasiness, and she coughs slightly.

"Take yer time," Patty says, patting her gently on the back. "We don't have anywhere to be."

"...Kay," Maka says. She knows how pathetic she sounds, but she doesn't know how to process this at all.

Behind her eyelids, things look strange; there's something not-quite-grey about the streetlights, and it tints the darkness with new hues that confuse her.

She squeezes them tighter, listening instead to the hum of evening traffic, to the deafening chirps of the summer cicadas. Even though it's hot as Hades on this Friday evening, she finds that she's shaking, though when Patty reaches over and places her hand on Maka's back, the shivers eventually fade.

They sit in silence for awhile longer before Maka finally sits up, blinking against the lowlight.

On one hand, it's definitely better than inside; there's still that strange, muted color of the streetlights that she can't yet name, but there's also, she realizes, the familiar black and white speckle of the stars overhead.

Well, the sky isn't _quite_ black-and-white. After looking at it so many times, she's hyper-aware of every difference between _this_ night sky and the one she's come to know. And despite all of the tumult in her heart, there's something about those little changes in the sky that intrigues her.

Still. She can feel it - that familiar tightness in her chest that often comes with change. It's bittersweet, the realization that tonight, something in her life has been irrevocably altered.

And so, gaze trained on the sky, Maka focuses on the two colors she knows best. She wants to say goodbye to black-and-white before she leaves it behind for good.

* * *

He shouldn't have looked.

He knew she'd be looking, and he knew what would happen, and he knew what was at stake. And he did it anyway.

Sleep hasn't come easily the past couple of nights. Soul can't even blame the heat; it had stormed for the entire weekend, cooling his bedroom to a moderately liveable temperature. No, it's his _conscience_ that keeps him awake, and as a result, Soul spends the weekend trying to quiet his mind, Weird Al keeping dutiful watch above him.

 _Why?_ Why did he look? He could've stared at the floor, could've hidden behind the bar. There were innumerable ways he could have made an ass out of himself to avoid being seen, and he'd chosen none of them. Looking cool is important, but it's not _that_ important.

He's re-lived it so many times that it's all burned into his brain: Black*Star's warning glance as they turned around. Sid (that's the bartender's name, he had soon learned) chuckling to himself over Maka's Act of Angry Kindness. Liz in the background, bringing her hand to her face to hide her shock-turned-smirk. And the thing he'd tried to forget the most: the thrill that had shot through him at seeing green eyes - her _real_ eyes, in real life - a few feet away, even with the anger coursing through them.

Liz had texted him late that night, telling him what he already knew.

[[ you're an idiot. ]]  
[[ like, truly. ]]  
[[ whatever the highest level of dumbass is. that's you. ]]  
[[ someone should give you a medal. ]]

He knows she won't send anything else - she won't jeopardize her friend's recruitment by sending something that might give him away - but the next time he sees her in person, he is 1000 percent screwed.

[[ yeah. I know ]]

His dreams are punctuated by disco lights and credit cards - as are, evidently, his waking thoughts. In the darkness of his room, he leans over and hangs awkwardly off of his bed, trying to reach his phone in his pants pocket but unwilling to fully commit to getting out of bed. When he finally fishes his phone out, he lets out a heavy sigh.

5:41 a.m. It's too early, but he's awake now, so he decides that it's as good a time as any to get up for work.

After two days of agonizing, he's ready to go back. He needs a distraction. And also, a darker, curious part of him wants to see what she'll be like with the new knowledge she's gained.

His jacket whips at his sides as he rides into work - because ultimately, looking cool is still very important.

The glow of his computer lights up an otherwise dark office when he pulls up Resonance in his cubicle. To his extreme surprise, there's already a message waiting for him.

[[ I just looked back at the Yahoo test. You have too much free time. ]]

He snorts, making a mental note to tell Black*Star about Maka's review of The Amazing Technicolor FBI Test. This also tells him that she's in good enough spirits to still be joking around, which is reassuring.

[[ you're one to talk. ]] he types back. [[ looking at old tests? nothing better to do? ]]

When the _typing…_ pops up immediately, he freezes, heart speeding up in a way that it definitely shouldn't when one is simply interacting with your typical run-of-the-mill recruit. Being on the computer at the same time as her feels strangely personal. It's the closest he _can_ get to her, and it is incredibly exhilarating.

[[ The ball's in your court. I'm ready for another one any time. ]]

In his mind's eye, he can picture her hunched over the laptop in the early morning darkness, green eyes burning behind the screen, challenging him. He wants to say something else; wants to _talk_ to her. But this is an FBI-sanctioned program, so he stays on topic.

[[ stay tuned. ]]

* * *

Maka wakes up to rain again, and she hates it.

It's the icing on top of a weekend that she'd spent restless and agitated. She knows she should be happy - _invigorated_ , even - by the new world she has to explore, everything she has to discover. She'd _wanted_ color, hadn't she?

But it's all wrong. She'd asked for sunrises, and since Friday, she's gotten nothing but storms.

It's still dark when she pulls herself out of bed, but the patter of rain on the porch is loud enough to hear from the bedroom. Maka starts to make tea, but continues to eye her laptop, which sits precariously on the couch.

Since EAT is closed on the weekend, she'd spent her whole weekend on the computer. After Friday's events, she's still hesitant to reach out to Liz and Patty, even though they would probably make her feel better. She'd also hoped that her mysterious 'recruiters' might give her something to do, but evidently they'd been busy as well. They're a business, most likely, if they aren't contacting her on the weekend.

Going through her old tests had been a mostly useless endeavor... but it's clear that one of them _must_ be able to see color, because this first test is a monstrosity. She informs them of this, and smiles for the first time in days at the quippy response she gets in return.

This is the person she's been able to figure out the least about; she knows that the one who types with Proper Punctuation is the leader, and the one who screams all the time is… well, that they scream. But this one is a total mystery.

[[ stay tuned ]] is not enough to satisfy her, so she continues the conversation:

[[ Can I get a timeline on that? When will the next one be? ]]

[[ she's impatient. ]] says her hacker friend, and she gets the feeling that they are _teasing_ her. She doubles down, typing faster than before.

[[ It's been a long weekend, okay? I need a change of pace. ]]

[[ this is really your idea of fun? a test? ]]  
[[ nerd. ]]

She lets out a little shocked gasp at this, and she's already finished typing before she realizes that a smile has spread its way across her face again.

[[ Do you talk to everyone like this? You aren't very professional, are you? ]]

[[ not the first time i've heard that this week, believe it or not. ]]

She decides that of all three Stooges, this one might be her favorite.

[[ anyway. your super fun test is coming. never fear. ]]

It's melodramatic, but she types it anyway:

[[ I'm not afraid of anything. ]]

The _typing…_ notification does not return, and she reads back over the conversation twice before closing the message. Part of her wishes that she could read it again.

Trying to distract herself some more, she heads back to her room, gets out her phone and sends Liz a text.

[[ See you at work today? ]]

The response is almost immediate:

[[ we're extending our weekend. come get ice cream. ]]

[[ But it's raining. ]]

[[ so? there is no bad weather for ice cream. ]]

Ultimately, she just wants to get out of this house, so if Liz and Patty want ice cream, she'll get ice cream.

Much like Death Brew, the ice cream place is a whirl of color, though the overall tonality of this place is vastly different - all soft pinks and yellows instead of the harsh neons of the bar.

Another one of Maka's weekend projects had been the slow, arduous process of memorizing colors. Despite her uncertainties with the whole situation, she _had_ always been a diligent student, and she'd gotten a decent grasp of most colors within a few hours. There had been a surprising number of resources online for new seers of color, and she'd made use of anything she could get her cursor on to master her newest ability.

The very first color that she'd learned was red. An obvious enough choice, considering it's the first color of the rainbow and is prominently displayed on a variety of traffic signs.

That's not why Maka remembers it, though.

"Hey hey, stranger!" Patty says from behind the counter, hidden by flower petals and ice cream cones. "What're ya hungry for?"

"This place is perfect for you," Maka says with a laugh, shaking her head.

"Right?" Liz says, wrinkling her nose. "It's too happy in here."

"You should see it-" Maka begins, and snaps her mouth shut. _In color_ is what she was about to say, but it feels rude to say it, like she's bragging, or holding it over their heads. Liz already knows, though, judging by the grin that splits her face.

"In color, yeah, yeah." She's dismissive, but her tone is warm. "No, thanks. This ice cream is really good, and I'd rather not toss my cookies like _someone_ almost did on Friday-"

"Hey!" Maka laughs, playfully indignant. "I'm fine _now!_ "

"Ma'am, I'm going to need your word that you are in tip-top physical condition before I offer you this sample," Patty says, very serious.

Maka smiles, crossing her heart. "I haven't been nauseous in seventy-two hours," she assures her. "And no cookies were tossed."

"Excellent," Patty says. "Now what'll you be samplin' today?"

Liz holds her hand up to her face and says, in a stage whisper, _"She's only supposed to give you one flavor, but she says that's un-American."_

Patty holds up a handful of spoons with a conspiratorial grin.

Maka knows that they're trying extra hard to make her feel better, but it's working. So she samples everything that isn't chocolate, and ultimately settles for a scoop of butter pecan.

"... So how's it goin'?" Liz finally asks her when they've settled at a table, Patty joining them in between customers.

"It's… fine," Maka says. "It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

Liz nods. "Do you feel any different? Awakened to life's greatest mysteries?"

"Absolutely," Maka says mock-seriously. "When you see color, your third eye just opens right up." She sighs. "No, I feel the same, mostly. A little confused and overwhelmed, but a little curious, too."

"Curious, huh?" Liz says.

"Yeah." Maka takes a bite of her ice cream. "Color is pretty cool."

"And how about the _reason_ you can see color, hmm?" Patty says from behind the counter, wiggling her eyebrows. Liz shoots her a warning glance, but she ignores it. "Curious about that too?"

 _Yes._ "... I don't really know," Maka says. "A little?" _More than a little._ "But… I'm still mad. And I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel. I don't feel 'completed' or anything. I don't even know him."

Another nod from Liz. "You're waaay too self-sufficient for all of that 'he completes me' stuff anyway."

"Besides, you're supposed to feel _complemented_ , not complete!" Patty says as she balances a spoon on her nose.

"And he's definitely not a 'prince charming' sort of person," Liz says.

"You say that like you know him," Maka says with a laugh.

"Well," Liz says. "Don't freak out. But that's because... I do."

Maka pauses with a spoon halfway to her mouth. "Wait. _You do?_ "

"Yeah, we uh… used to work together," Liz says. "Still do, sometimes, on little projects." Her eyes flick up to Maka's, apologetic. "I would've told you sooner, but I thought you had enough to deal with. Didn't wanna overwhelm you."

Maka nods. She knows this is one of the 'jobs' that Liz doesn't like to talk about, and she files that away for later.

"So uh. If you really are curious, and you aren't sure about him, I could help… educate you, if you want."

Maka leans back, considering. She's been tamping it down since Friday, the confusion over her first experience with color taking precedence over curiosity. But now, faced with a fountain of information, she can sense her desire to learn, to _know_ , slowly rekindle, and a flood of questions breaks forth.

"Is he smart?"

Liz tries very hard not to smile at this question, and mostly succeeds. "He likes to think he is," she says, rolling her eyes. "And then sometimes he does the dumbest things you can imagine."

Maka nods. "Is he funny?"

"...In his own way, yeah," Liz says. "He's got a… unique sense of humor. It's his _brand._ "

"Does he take his job seriously?" Maka asks. "Like, does he work hard?"

"Hmm." Liz taps her chin with the spoon. "He _does_?" It's more of a question than a statement. "I think he wants to do a good job - but then he'll go and do something so damn unprofessional-"

"What is with all of these unprofessional people lately?" Maka exclaims.

"Professionalism is very important," Patty says, now balancing a stack of ice cream cups on her nose. Liz and Maka share a knowing glance.

"Okay, two more," Maka says, putting her spoon down into her finished cup and setting it on the table. "... Is he kind?"

Liz pauses, carefully considering this one. "Is he kind," she repeats. "That's a good question. Not like you, I don't think. He doesn't have the same… save-the-world open-heartedness, if you know what I mean."

Maka pinks, a little touched at this analysis of her character.

"But," Liz adds. "I think he'd lend a hand in a pinch."

"Sorta reminds me of you, sis!" Patty says, sliding into the chair between them.

"Excuse _me_ , I am not kind," Liz says, faux-affronted, though she hooks an arm around Patty's shoulders as she says it. "I print out flyers that threaten people in _expensive red ink_ \- oh hey, Maka, can you check on those tomorrow?"

"Sure thing," Maka says with a smile.

"Okay, you said you had one more!" Patty cheers, because she is great at scooping ice cream _and_ eavesdropping.

"Yeah," Maka says, shuffling in her seat. She's embarrassed about this one, because it showcases the depth of her curiosity.

"Could… you tell me his name?"

Liz goes still, and the smile she'd been fighting before returns with a vengeance, lighting up her eyes.

"... Sorry. Can't help with that one," Liz says, though she doesn't sound at _all_ apologetic. "If you wanna know _that_ , you'll have to ask him yourself."

* * *

Soul had spent all week trying to come up with a test. The pressure is mounting to create something more difficult, the heat is back and it's messing with his head, and the more he thinks, the less progress he seems to make. The Kid has been caught up with drama elsewhere in the bureau, and Black*Star's been the opposite of helpful, only offering suggestions involving credit cards and bar tabs.

He's out of options, so when he drags himself into Megami on Thursday night, he decides to get some outside help again.

"The usual?" Tsubaki asks after his routine five minutes of pretending to inspect the menu.

"... Yeah," he says, handing the menu over. "Actually," he adds as she turns to go. "You got any sake?"

She thumbs the menus in her hand. "Long week?"

" _Really_ long week."

She nods. "I'll bring you the big one."

"How much-" he starts to say, but she's already walking away.

"On the house," she says with a wave of her hand.

"... Thanks," he mutters, and though she can't hear him, he has the feeling she can sense the sentiment.

When she returns, she taps her finger against the paper he's been scribbling on. "Another test?"

He's glad that she's the one to bring it up. "Yeah." He looks down at all of his crossed-out plans with a sense of vague despair.

"Need some help?"

"Yes. Please. I'm dying."

She drops into the seat across from him, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I'm still not sure what this is all about, but… last time you used sushi, yes?" Soul nods, pencil attentively poised over a new sheet of paper. "Did you get what you needed from that test? What else do you need to know?"

 _How to not be attracted to your recruit_ _slash soulmate_ is the first thing he thinks of, and it _is_ something he would love to know, but that's not a path he's willing to tread this evening.

"I keep thinking about weaknesses," he says instead. I know a lot about what she _can_ do, and there doesn't seem to be a lot she can't do. But there _must_ be something."

"Hmm," she says. "But why focus on what's weak?"

He chuckles. "You sound like her. 'What's the point of tiptoeing around?'"

"Sometimes the best defense is a good offense," Tsubaki says automatically.

"God, I've heard that before," Soul groans, laying his head on his arms.

She laughs. "It's a staple expression around my house."

They fall into silence, and he swishes the sake around in its glass. What if he could give her a chance to put that strategy to use? He sets the glass down on the counter, and the thud that it makes reminds him of knocking on a door. Thunk. Thunk. _Thunk._

With the third thunk, it _clicks_.

"Dude," he says, looking up at Tsubaki. "I've got something."

In response, Tsubaki clinks her sake glass against his before downing the rest of her drink in celebration, and it reminds him of someone.

"The two of you would be friends, I think," he says as he takes another sip, now whipping his pencil across the paper.

"She sounds smart," Tsubaki says, "so I'll take that as a compliment."

"...She _is_ ," is his reply, and he hopes it sounds more like an affirmation than a swoon.

* * *

"You want my approval to what?" The Kid repeats calmly, though Soul can sense his confusion.

"Attack her," Soul says again. The Kid raises an eyebrow, and Soul realizes where the disconnect is. "Not _physically_ , oh my god. With malware, dude."

"We're in the FBI," The Kid says lightly. "Sometimes these are necessary distinctions."

Soul doesn't want to think about the other _projects_ that The Kid has been involved in that would require such a distinction.

"Anyway," The Kid says. "What's your rationale?"

Soul is prepared for this, so he launches into his speech. "Okay. We've only seen her on the offensive," he says. "Every test we've given her has been about figuring something out. I want her to keep _us_ out."

"Are you sure-" He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Hmm. Never mind."

"... What?" Soul asks.

"No, no," The Kid says quickly. "It's a good idea. Go ahead and start, if you have something in mind."

"Uh," Soul says. "Okay?" He hasn't even explained everything, but The Kid is already walking back to the break room, and he's eager to have something to send her, so he ignores the niggling, questioning side of his brain and gets to it.

By the end of the day, he's got the full test ready.

"Another productive burst, I see," The Kid says dryly as he leans over the computer.

Soul has several motivations, but he only discloses one: "Job security is important to me," he drawls.

"And _my_ job security is important to him," Black*Star says approvingly, popping his thumb over the cubicle wall. Soul rolls his eyes.

"...Fair enough," The Kid says. "How do you feel about staying late to send it tonight?"

"I uh…" Soul sighs, and Black*Star's snicker across the cubicle does nothing to improve his feelings about the matter.

"I really wish I could," Soul says, "but I have somewhere else I need to be."

* * *

If Soul doesn't manage to recruit anyone this summer, maybe he can accept an alternative career in bussing tables.

Despite their drinks being paid for on that fateful evening, Sid had insisted that the two of them work off their crimes by being in his gainful employ for the next couple of weeks. He's not actually getting _paid_ for this, which is fourteen kinds of illegal - though Sid had reminded him that, hey, in case you'd forgotten, _not paying your tab is also illegal._

As his snickering at work had indicated, Black*Star isn't here tonight; he's been serving out his sentence much more _gradually_ than Soul, thanks to his impressive arsenal of avoidance tactics and poorly crafted excuses. Soul, on the other hand, has accepted his fate, particularly because every second his hands are busy is a second he can't spend stewing.

He's still torturing himself, though. He eyes the drawer to the cash register at Death Brew, because Maka's card is still there, hidden beneath the twenty-dollar bills. When she'd exacted revenge on him by paying his tab, she'd left her card behind.

Who _does_ that, by the way? He's still confused and sort of enraptured by that. Who _exacts revenge by paying for someone's drinks_? He adds 'kills people with kindness' to his ever-growing list of Maka's attributes.

He takes another glass and dries it, reaching up to stack it on the shelf. It's not so bad working here, anyway. It's still pretty early on Friday, so the bar isn't too busy just yet, and although things will definitely pick up in the evening, it's quite calm now, almost boring.

Just as he starts wishing for something else to occupy his busy mind, he wheels around to fetch another glass and finds himself face-to-face with a blonde-haired, green-eyed killer whose weapon of choice is kindness.

"Um," she says, fingers like a vice on the handbag on her shoulder as her eyes dart to the floor. "Hi."

This isn't happening. Is it? He can feel his face heat up as he turns to face her. Well shit, if it is, he'd better say something.

"...Hi," he says, and _god_ , it comes out so lame, and so unsure, and definitely _not_ how a cool, leather jacket-clad bartender should be saying things. She's still standing there, watching him, and the clink of the glass as he places it back on the counter is deafening.

"Uh," he says after a few beats of silence. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Um." Her knuckles are white around the handbag. "No," she says. "... Thank you," she adds, which tempers the sting a little. "I'm… just here to pick up my card."

He nods, understanding, and turns silently to grab it from the register.

"...I already cancelled it," she explains, to fill the silence, or because she feels like she _needs_ to explain, maybe.

"Yeah. That's smart," he says as he puts it down on the counter. She looks at him for a moment, tilting her head sideways.

"... Was that sarcasm?" she says slowly. Any awkwardness she'd displayed seconds ago has vanished, replaced by that steely glare that has haunted his dreams since last week.

Why does she terrify him? And more importantly, _why does he like it?_

"Nope," he says, because he won't let himself be intimidated ( _visibly_ , anyway). "S'actually smart." He slides the card down the bar towards her. She grabs it and puts it back into her wallet, but instead of immediately leaving like he expects her to do, she gets up and walks over to stand _right_ in front of him.

"You're sure?" she says, crossing her arms.

"...Most things I say sound sarcastic," he shrugs. "So that's probably it." She seems to accept this, because suddenly the arms are uncrossed and she's sitting down, her index fingers coming up to make a temple in front of her.

"Okay," she says, watching him carefully. "Then... I think I'll take that drink."

He fights a smile. "Just your drink?" he asks. "Or will you be paying for the whole bar tonight?"

"I see what you mean about the sarcasm," she drawls as she digs out a different card and slaps it on the table.

"I'm kidding," he says, pushing the card back towards her. When she reaches down to grab it, their fingers brush. "Uh," he adds, determinedly not looking down at his hands. "I owe you. Okay?"

She nods, and he thinks that she might be trying to hide a smile too. "Okay. A cider?"

"Sure." He turns from her to grab a glass and starts to fill it from the tap. "We really did forget, by the way," he adds to fill the silence, or because he feels like _he_ needs to explain, maybe. "We had the money."

She looks him over once as she sips the cider, the tiniest smile finally crossing her face.

"I think I believe you. ...But I still have some questions for you."

* * *

Maka falls into her bed at midnight with a yawn, scratching behind Blair's ears and reeling a little from the past few hours of conversation. Or, okay. Of _grilling_. Because that's what she'd done, really.

He'd been a good sport. But she needs to _know_ things - and it had been fun to see him get prickly about some of the questions.

 _Soul,_ she thinks. _Short for Solomon._ It's a strange name. Memorable.

Legs squished against the wall because Blair has decided to take up the entire bed with her summer stretching, Maka opens up her laptop out of habit to check in on her recruiter friends. The chat had been dead all week long, and she's starting to wonder if they've dropped her, or found a better person to torment via pop-ups.

Speaking of pop-ups, she thinks as her screen comes to life - her antivirus has quarantined something.

Pulling up the program, Maka taps absently against the mousepad and inspects the file, and when she sees where it's _from_ , she grins.

"Oh," she says, suddenly wide awake. "You're here? I thought you'd _died_."

[[ one super fun test, coming right up. ]] the chat says, and she lets out one little laugh before her entire screen freezes, and her eyes widen.

" _No,_ " she says in disbelief, wiggling the cursor. It doesn't move. Her stomach drops as she watches her cursor start to move around on its own, clicking on icons without her assistance. "Damnit-"

Even though it's midnight, she knows who to call.

"Liz," she says urgently into the receiver. "Can you come over? _Yes_ , right now. I need to borrow your laptop."

* * *

 **Hehehe:** There's a lot more coming! Feel free to drop me a line if you're enjoying! Thank you so much for reading. :)


	5. Let Me Disarm You

Hello, my dear reader friends. Long time no see! Thank you so much for your patience. I love this story as much as I always have, but life just gets in the way sometimes! Big love to my gurl thefishywishy for giving this a read before posting.

All right, enough chit-chat! Let's get into it! As always, I hope you enjoy. :)

* * *

The office is _exceedingly_ dark at midnight.

After his shift at the bar, Soul had made a beeline for his cubicle, motivated by sudden inspiration and a green light text from The Kid, who is evidently still very awake at the witching hour.

[[ Go ahead. Friday evening is as good a time as any. Just make sure that you watch the whole thing. ]]

As if he'd able to sleep, knowing that Maka would be going toe-to-toe against the malware _he_ created. But with his boss's blessing, he'd proceeded to unleash the beast - a particularly gnarly bit of malware that Black*Star had affectionately named The Serpent. It's aptly named; the way Soul has written it, the program strikes at the system like a snake, and then wriggles into the hard drive to do its damage. He's curious to see how she'll get out of this one.

In the midnight darkness, he watches her scramble. As expected, she starts by trying to access her coding terminal without using the mouse (unsuccessful), followed by a reboot into Safe Mode (unsuccessful) and when she tries to get in through Administrator, a cheeky pop-up window appears to inform her: U WON'T SURPASS GOD THAT WAY.

After this, she'd gone radio silent, but not for long. The program is about ten minutes into its invasion when another computer tethers itself to her wifi.

The speed at which she'd obtained another computer tells him that she'd called someone right away, as a preventative measure. As usual, she's a step ahead of what other people would do, and he is once again forced to tamp down the voice in his head reminding him that she's smart, and prepared, and _scary_.

He wonders what computer she'd managed to scrounge up. Curious, he starts to pull up the information in his database, but he hasn't quite found it before his phone lights up with a text.

[[ you cannot fathom the number of ways i am plotting your murder right now. ]]

His laugh echoes through the empty office. Well, Liz _is_ the one who set this thing in motion, so now she's paying the price for her involvement.

[[ this is what happens when we nominate our friends as recruits ]], he sends back.

[[ you and your livejournal will rue the day that you messed with my beauty sleep, Eater. ]]  
[[ and to think i put in a good word for you. ]]

It's an empty threat, probably, but the second message gives him pause, because 1) he is, admittedly, flattered and 2) this means that Maka's been _asking_ about him, which is an intriguing piece of intel.

[[ a good word, huh? ]] he finally types.

[[ yeah, well. it's been rescinded. no more good words for the asshole who keeps me awake after midnight and endangers my laptop ]]

He frowns down at his phone. [[ what are you worried about? ]]

A pause. [[ i'm not worried. ]]

[[ uh huh ]]

His phone is quiet for another moment, but soon the truth comes to light:

[[ my computer is precious cargo, and i'm not interested in being collateral damage. ]]  
[[ also. i need to let you know. this is like, the weirdest courtship ritual ever. can't you two just go out for coffee or something? ]]

He groans, his face hot, because for the hundred-millionth time: he's just trying to _do his damn job._

Keeping it professional - because he's good at that - he types back: [[ she's probably put up extra safeguards. she's smart like that. but feel free to ask. ]]

* * *

As Maka had waited for Liz to show up, she sat there and _seethed._

Minutes ticked by as she watched the malware wreak havoc on her computer - watched her precious ISP worms, the things she's planted to intercept information about bad people, disappear before her eyes.

For the first time, she's worried. What if these people aren't really who they say they are?

Because honestly, her mysterious recruiters haven't given her anything. Nothing that they've told her has really given her a reason to trust them. Tests are one thing, but sifting through her computer, deleting and doing who knows what else with her data, is quite another.

She tries not to fret over this too much, but without anything else to do, it's almost impossible not to think about it. They really _could_ be scammers, couldn't they? Had she fallen headfirst into an elaborate identity theft ploy? Had she really given them access to her files, to her passwords and emails, so easily? Just because they were funny, and a little charming?

Even so, intuition is telling her that she's overthinking it. She doesn't think they're _dangerous_ , necessarily, but she needs to tip the scales in her favor.

Before she can ponder this further, there's a knock at the door to interrupt her thoughts.

"Genius Bar, at your service!" someone yells through the wood.

She swings the door open to find Liz, who holds up a computer and says, "Here it is. But first…" She regards Maka seriously. "Did you try turning it off and on again?"

"Just _get in here_ ," Maka says with a grumble, taking the laptop out of her arms.

From Liz's pocket erupts a loud, high-pitched laugh. _"See sis, I knew she'd love that joke!"_

"Why are you two always _conspiring_ to do things like this?" Maka says over her shoulder, running into her bedroom to get everything set up.

 _"Just trying to keep your life interesting!"_ Patty says, still on speakerphone. _"I know it's been reeeeeeally boring lately, so…"_

"Yeah, thanks for trying to liven things up, Pat," Maka says as Liz walks into the room with a grin, flopping onto Maka's bed as she scrambles to plug in the computer.

 _"Okay,"_ Patty says, letting out a big yawn. _"My work here is done. I'm gonna sleep. Nighty night, gals. Good luck taking down the bad guys."_

"Thanks, Patty," Maka says with a wry little smile. "Night."

When Liz's phone cuts off with a little click, Maka turns her undivided attention to the task at hand, cracking her knuckles before she plugs in her mouse and opens Liz's laptop.

It's a race against time, but more than anything it's a race against herself. Secret recruiters - or whoever they are - be damned, she wants to prove this to herself, to take back control of her laptop and her life. She pulls up her terminal, the familiar black code boxes putting her at ease, and gets to work.

"...I'm gonna grab some water," Liz says from behind her after a few minutes. "This is stressing me out."

Maka snorts. "Imagine how I feel."

"I think you'll get it figured out," Liz says as she exits the room. "Master Hacker."

Maka smiles thinly and uses the comment to dip into her supply of confidence, which has slowly been trickling away. When Liz comes back in, she's carrying a glass of water for herself and one for Maka. As she hands it to her, Liz asks, "Hey. Is my baby gonna be okay?"

"...What, your computer?" Maka asks, looking up at her. "Oh, yeah." She nods for extra reassurance, suddenly feeling a little guilty. "I'm sorry I didn't explain it before. They can see us on the wifi connection, so they know there's another computer, but as long as we don't use an ethernet cable, they can't touch your system. I'm putting firewalls up, too. So you are good to go. Unless you already had a program called Resonance installed, somehow."

"Never heard of it," Liz says, looking relieved. "Hey. Thanks for being smart."

"Mmm. Don't thank me until I've got this malware back where it came from," Maka says with a frown. As Liz flops back onto the bed, scrolling through her phone, Maka rolls up her sleeves and gets to work.

A few minutes later, she's got the connection fully tethered without exposing Liz's computer to any problems. Now she just has to pinpoint the source of the malware - which has to be, without a doubt, coming from Resonance.

Ultimately, she should have expected this. It's a logical next step, putting her on the defensive, and she'd been naive. But she won't make that mistake twice.

Once she finally locates the file, she sighs aloud. It's _crazy_ encrypted, and any time she tries to pull up information on it, the whole program shuts itself down and winks out of existence, only to reappear again with ten more of her files missing.

Tricky. They're crafty. But she's _also_ crafty, and there's a little trick that she picked up through exploring the back doors of Google that might help her out here.

Program-wise, she has a couple of aces in her pocket that her recruiters haven't seen, and there's one in particular that seems tailor-made for this purpose. She calls it the Witch Hunter.

It's a way to track down and eliminate a very specific piece of code - essentially, a search function for malignant data. She's always been good at sorting out the good from the bad - with people, but with code as well. It's a skill she's practiced for a long time, honing her ability to discern the difference between a batch of innocent code from something corrupted.

She types a few quick keystrokes into the client, and the code is running - seeking out the corruption and delivering it to her doorstep in two minutes flat.

"Bingo," she says. Eyes scanning the code, she's a little dumbfounded. The way that it has infiltrated her system would actually be fascinating if she weren't currently victim to its whims, so she pulls out her phone and snaps a few photos of the code to study later, just in case it self-destructs when she gets rid of it.

When her eyes fall on one particular piece of code, she lets out a bitter laugh. "Ugh. You guys are the _worst_. It was so _simple_."

Sitting there, plain as day, is the solution. There's a weakness in the code, pointing her straight back to Resonance. She can already see what she needs to do: she can double back and purge her computer, as long as she has a password.

Her eyes fly over the code, frantically searching for her escape route.

"Wait… can they hear you?" Liz asks from the foot of the bed.

"They like to listen in from time to time," Maka says. "And I _know_ the one who sent this code is a night owl."

"You've really… gotten to know them, huh?"

"Mmm, not really," Maka says with a shrug. "But I can tell them apart. One of them yells too much. The other's very prim and proper. And the last one..."

She falls back into reading for a moment before Liz prompts her with, "And the last one…?"

"The last one," she says, eyes glinting with amusement as she takes in the final part of the code that Witch Hunter has pulled up. "...is such an _idiot._ "

The password is ILUVSUSHI.

Her eyes are bright, the rush of near-victory making her giddy.

"Hey Liz," she says. "I'm gonna need to bring Resonance onto your computer, okay?" At Liz's hesitation, she adds, "I'll buy you a new computer if things go crazy. Promise."

Liz grits her teeth a little, but nods. "Dude. This is so stressful. I can't watch this." She stands, phone clutched tightly in her hand. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

"Sure." Maka adds a couple more firewalls and brings Resonance into the fold, the familiar chat window lighting up her screen. With a grimace, she types the password.

"I just want you to know," she says to anyone who might be _listening_ , "that this is cruel and unusual coding punishment, and when I meet you in real life - because I _will_ meet you - we're going to have a nice conversation about proper coding practices."

In Resonance pops up a sequence of messages, and she has to bite down on her lip to keep from grinning.

[[ proper coding practices, huh? ]]  
[[ please, give me a lecture ]]  
[[ she who hacks government satellites in her spare time ]]

Not funny, not funny. Her favorite stooge is _not funny._

But she can't help it; she's grinning as she leans over to her own computer and wiggles the mouse. It moves freely, and when she minimizes Resonance, she sees that all of her files have been returned, exactly where she left them. Relief spreads through her, and though she's ready to go after them for real, to figure out who the three stooges really are, she takes a moment to revel in this little victory.

When she brings up Resonance again, there's a final message waiting for her.

[[ nice job, "master hacker" ]]

"You like that nickname, huh?" She peels the Post-It off of her camera, and she looks toward the door.

"Hey Liz," she calls out. "Could you bring me a Yoohoo from the fridge?"

* * *

She won. But now she can't _sleep._

Hours later, Maka's brain still won't quiet down, and she finds herself scrolling through the code, face lit up in the darkness as Liz snores on the bed behind her.

She appreciates that the code itself did _not_ disappear along with the malware, instead saving itself neatly into her terminal so that she could explore it. Her recruiter friends might be annoying, but they do keep giving her ways to grow. She's further convinced, at this point, that they _are_ actually trying to recruit her into something, and it makes her more curious than ever.

Once she tires of looking at the code itself, she goes back to the logs, wondering if she can sift through more information about the program now that it's been rendered benign.

"...Hm," she says. "I wonder…"

She pulls up the program file again and looks at the newly available information. They probably wouldn't leave any really obvious traces behind, but she has to check.

And as her eyes scan the specs for the program, she immediately zeroes in one specific line.

They _did_ leave something behind. Something big.

Are they not as smart as she thought? Or is this another trap?

The program that they used to compile this malware… has been _signed with an IP address._

She takes picture of this as well, to make sure she has a copy, and lies down on the floor, head spinning. It's now almost 4:30 in the morning, and though she knows she should feel exhausted, she's still running high on adrenaline.

She's too curious to put it off, so she sits back up and starts to look up the signature.

None of the basic searches on the address turn up anything, of course, but when she goes for one of the more thorough ones, the Domain of Webmaster Addresses - the DWMA, for short - something... intriguing pops up.

There's no contact information attached, but there is a location: Washington D.C., USA.

Heat spreads through her, her eyes widening.

Close.

They're in _her_ city. Under her nose. They could be in the apartment next door, for all she knows.

With newly ignited resolve, she opens up her terminal and starts to type again, digging up whatever else she can on this IP. As the adrenaline in her bones finally starts to fade, she looks over at her computer clock to realize that it's almost six in the morning. She blinks at the wall above the computer, little white boxes flashing in her vision, and she notices that there's a sheen of blue creeping in through the windows.

It dawns on her that it's not raining anymore, and there are very few things that could drag her away from her computer at a moment like this, but the prospect of a first _sunrise_ is certainly one of them.

Leaving Liz to her snoring, Maka walks through the kitchen, hooks Blair under her arm and inches out onto the back porch in the cool air. After a week, the rain has finally passed on, and the dark blue of the sky is melding into light blue, the horizon budding with the first rays of sunlight. She sits in her chair, surrounded by her plants, watching from her little terrarium as the sky begins to change. Smoothly, gently, like slow-moving ripples on a pond, shades of pink, of orange, of purple, begin to spread their way across the sky, turning the clouds to candy.

She watches it all in simple wonder, Blair settled in her lap, all of the colors she's ever imagined reflecting in her eyes, tinting them green.

It's so _much_ , the transition; she watches as the stars sink back into the sky, how the moon watches the spectacle as it wanes, reduced to a pink-gray shadow behind the changing sky. At the center of the show lies the sun, the lead ballerina in the sunrise ballet, a yellow sliver of light creeping up above the horizon.

Beautiful isn't really enough to describe it, she thinks. It's transformative. Incredible. And it's also… sad, because she wants everyone to be able to experience this. Fate, or _whatever_ you call it, shouldn't get to decide who sees this and who doesn't.

Once the sun is almost completely overhead and the summer heat begins to warm her face, she reaches up and wipes a tear away from her cheek. She decides that the next time she sees a sunrise, she doesn't want to watch it alone.

A lot has changed in the past few weeks, but as she thinks of the events that have led her to this moment, and of the clue she's just gotten, intuition knocks at the back of her mind once more.

She doesn't have all of the answers yet… but the tables are turning. She can feel it.

* * *

The next morning, Soul rolls into work at midday, still exhausted from the night before. It's not that 2 a.m. is particularly far from the norm in terms of his bedtime, it's just that he spent so much emotional _energy_ watching her do that test. The fact that she had solved it so fast had dealt a blow to his ego that's stronger than he'd like to admit, though he is… still weirdly proud of her, strange as that sounds.

The Kid does not seem to share his sentiments.

"She did better than expected," The Kid says as he scrolls through the log, clearly disappointed. "It was too easy."

"Yeah. It was." Soul taps his fingers against his desk, restless. "But how was I supposed to know she'd hand-crafted her own executable for hunting down malware? Nobody _does_ that."

"It is impressive," The Kid says, his mouth in a thin line. "And it's still useful information for us. She was able to take that program down so easily, even with having to wait for backup." His eyes glide over to Soul's, and he says lightly, "She hasn't… said anything else, since the test?"

"Uh," Soul says, clicking back into Resonance to double-check. "No. But it's only been a few hours. Why?"

"No reason," The Kid says. "I was merely curious. Moving along." He turns to face Soul head-on. "This next test will be the last one before we bring her in. Do you have anything in mind?"

"Wait." Soul freezes, hand stilling on his desk. "Bring her in?"

"Well, yes," The Kid says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. "We'll have to interview her eventually. And do a test in person."

"Oh." He should have realized that would happen, but for some reason it had escaped him, the fact that she'd actually have to appear at the bureau _in person_ sooner or later.

"...Is there a problem?" The Kid asks.

" _No,_ " Soul says, much too fast, and he swallows once before speaking again. "No. I'm just… I don't like meeting recruits?"

He hopes it sounds honest, and not like something he fabricated five seconds ago, but the expression on The Kid's face is totally unreadable.

"...I see," The Kid says. "Well, if it makes you feel better, I doubt you'll be too involved in the interview process. You should be moving on to finding new recruits soon, after all."

"Oh. Yeah." Yes. He should.

Why is there a black hole forming in the pit of his stomach? He'd just gotten what he wanted, hadn't he? A successful recruit. Something to _save his job_. So why does he feel like shit?

"Anyway. That's still a ways off. In the meantime, let me know what you think about the next test. I want you to do your best to try to get in her head. Really stump her with this one."

Soul nods. "Sure."

He settles in, pulling out his notepad and staring at a blank page, fighting this stupid _sadness_ he feels over not recruiting her anymore and wondering what in the world this last test should be.

In the meantime, despite the recruitment period coming closer to an end, there are still developments in other aspects his life that are just beginning to take shape, and it has created an… interesting situation.

The day after his conversation with The Kid, Maka had texted him. During the night of the Great Death Brew Investigation, one of the things she'd asked for, at the end of the evening, was his phone number. When he rolls over the next morning, it's the first thing he sees when he digs his phone out of his floor-strewn pants pocket.

[[ Hey… you awake? ]]

The timestamp is from five in the morning. Since he'd been trying to get back into a normal sleep schedule after wrecking her computer with FBI-sanctioned malware two days prior… no, he had not been awake. But he blinks with the surprise at the text, intrigued at the thought that in the aftermath of all of that insanity, he'd been on her mind.

He is nosy, so he is quick to respond.

[[ hey, i was asleep. everything ok? ]]

His phone lights up almost immediately. [[ Hey. Yep. Just couldn't sleep. ]]

He tilts his head at this, curious. [[ what's up? ]]

[[ I just had kind of a crazy night a couple nights ago, so now my sleep schedule's all thrown off. Something happened when I got home after Death Brew, so I was up late. You sleep okay? ]]

He hesitates before he answers. Trying to toe the line between honesty and giving away too much is a daunting task, especially with Maka's perception being what it is.

[[ that night? actually, i had a big deadline so i was up late too. ]]

[[ Same, sort of ]] she says, which makes the corner of his mouth turn up. The _exact_ same, sort of.

[[ I'm excited, though ]] she adds. [[ I think everything went pretty well. ]]

It's a colossal understatement, but he appreciates her modesty. And he has no idea what to say back, so he goes with how he's actually feeling.

[[ thats great. im sure you kicked ass. ]] He's very sure, in fact. He was there.

He can't figure out if she wants to talk to him about something in particular, or if she just wants to talk. But the conversation quickly morphs into other things: music, movies, little things about their families.

She avoids talking about work, for the most part, which he greatly appreciates. Every time he drops the conversation, she picks it up again, as she is blessed with social skills that he can only dream about having himself.

This continues throughout the day, and there's an _ease_ around talking to her that he's trying not to read into. But how can he not? She must want to talk to him too, if she's keeping the conversation going.

That evening, they text late into the night, and when he wakes up the next morning to the vibration of another text, he lets a rare smile spread against his pillow.

* * *

The table-turning is going well.

Every night, Maka comes home from EAT and dives into her research of the mysterious IP address. The fact that there's no additional information on it surprises her; normally the DWMA can give her access to more than just a location, so she's got more worms out on this IP than usual. She's trying to pick up anything that the address might be sending out, so she can get more clues to who they are. There's been no traffic yet, so in the meantime, she plays the waiting game. Resonance chat has been silent as well; she doesn't want them to figure out what's happened, if they have slipped up, so she lets things lie.

She's also in the process of turning the tables in other aspects of her life. The more personal aspects.

On one hand, she hates this soulmate thing. It's a lot of pressure, having to get to know someone who's supposedly destined to be yours. It's like she's learning to swim again, and she's treading in the strange in-between waters of meeting him and… whatever's supposed to come after. Maka's always been the one in charge of her own destiny, and it's unsettling, the fact that she needs to bow down to some predetermined formula for who she needs to be with.

Still. The whole thing makes her curious. _He_ makes her curious. She likes talking to him. But despite how easy it is to talk to him, she still feels… shy, and he's hesitant about all of this, too. She understands that.

But if nothing else, she is incredibly stubborn. If she sees something that she wants, cosmos be damned, she's going after it.

And so, as she does in every other aspect of her life, she takes charge.

Her sleep schedule is still insane, and she knows he'll still be asleep, but she wants to send it before she gets cold feet.

[[ Hey. Would you wanna do something tomorrow? ]]

She's halfway through typing 'No pressure' when the _typing…_ appears on her phone, and she stops, waiting for his answer with the kind of anticipation that she hasn't felt since her teen years.

[[ sure. im free after 5. got something in mind? ]]

She actually hadn't thought that far ahead, and she laughs at the excitement stirring in her gut as she racks her brain for something fun and social to do with one's supposed soulmate on a Thursday night. She can't come up with anything right away, so she must stall.

[[ … Did I wake you up? ]]

[[ no. ]]  
[[ maybe. ]]

[[ I had the feeling. ]]

Thinking back to her sunrise the other day, she decides that she wants… to see something colorful. There's so few people that she can experience that with. It makes sense, to go back to the reason this all began, right?

[[ How do you feel about museums? The Smithsonian has discounts on Thursdays. ]]

There's a hesitant pause, and she almost wants to suggest something else, but his message pops up before long.

[[ american history? ]]

She laughs aloud. [[ Not a natural history kinda guy? ]]

[[ nah. but pop culture stuff is cool ]]

Not an academic, Liz had said. But she imagines he's plenty smart, in his own way.

[[ Sounds good. See you at 6? ]]

[[ see you there. ]]

* * *

It's just a museum.

It's just a museum, he says to himself as he carefully selects a tee-shirt to wear - one of his less-ratty band tees - and a pair of black ripped jeans.

It's just a museum, he thinks as he fusses with his hair in the mirror. He's been standing in here for forty-five minutes, which is three times longer than normal.

Play it cool. It's a museum.

This is stupid. He _hates_ museums. Normally he'd walk into a museum already bored, scowling at all of the pretentious people talking about the Renaissance, or stupid paint techniques, or boring sciencey stuff.

He tries to talk himself down during his entire ride to the Smithsonian. It's rush hour in D.C., so traffic is dumb, and it only exacerbates his anxiety.

This is just another museum, where he'll be surrounded by boring people, saying boring shit. And that's what he tells himself on repeat, until he pulls into the parking lot, and sees her waiting by the door.

She lets out a little wave as he approaches, and he can already see, from a hundred feet away, what kind of fresh misery he is in for this evening. He is, apparently, not the only one who had carefully chosen his outfit tonight.

She's wearing a skirt, and it's _black_ and _red_ , of all things. The colors prominently featured on his wall, and also on his outfit this evening, but he can't even bring himself to care that they've accidentally color coordinated.

Because the cornerstone of her outfit, the centerpiece of this whole ensemble, is a fucking leather jacket.

She's gotta be doing this on purpose. He doesn't know what _this_ is, but she's doing it, and she looks _cool_ , and he's already more _screwed_ than he had ever anticipated.

She's wearing a wry little smile, too, which really does complement the entire look, if he's honest.

"...Nice jacket," he says when he gets close enough, and a grin spreads across her face.

"I thought you might like it," she says. "Normally I wouldn't wear this in August, but it gets cold inside."

He stops in front of her, surprised. "You're picking on me."

"I am." She turns away from him to get in line, but he doesn't miss her half-smile.

"Been here ten seconds, and she's picking on me," he says to the floor, and with another smile, she hooks her hand around his wrist, dragging him into the line after her.

It's also the second time in ten seconds that she's _surprised_ him, and he looks down at his hand in disbelief. But suddenly, unexpectedly, all of his nervousness fades, melted away by the heat of her hand.

The line moves quickly enough, and once they're through it, they walk through the museum at a leisurely pace. Maka runs over to look at every little thing while he takes in the experience from afar, unwilling to read every single panel but still enjoying the ambiance. Since Thursdays are discount days, the building is more crowded than he'd like.

Nevertheless, Maka keeps up with the wrist-grabbing, and he's not one to complain about that, so they never lose each other throughout the night.

It's not the same as actually holding hands, but the way she's holding his wrist feels exceptionally close, and he knows how easy it would be to reach out for her palm with his fingers, testing the waters.

But he won't. That's where he draws the line on this. She'll have to be the one to initiate. He can't imagine - well, that's not true, he _can_ imagine - but he's too scared to try anything. Hell, most of the time he's still stricken dumb by her presence, especially in this outfit, so the idea of making any kind of move is totally out of the question.

Also, HR probably wouldn't appreciate it. He's breaking all kinds of protocol at this point, and he doesn't want to make it worse. Soul finds himself hoping that Maka doesn't tell Liz about this. He's not looking forward to that string of texts.

They linger in the music sections longer than others, which he has the feeling she's doing on purpose. In turn, he notices that she lingers longer on the literature-based exhibits, as well as world history and warfare.

He's gotta be careful. She's _just_ as observant as he is, and also, she very likely knows every weapon produced by the American military complex since 1776.

Towards the end of the night, they find themselves in the film section, passing by old film props and the like, until they stumble on a specific exhibit. With a little gasp, Maka runs over to a window that houses a pair of Judy Garland's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz. He follows behind her, and is… stunned for a moment, realizing for the first time that this is the first time he's actually seeing them in their full glory.

"They're… so red," he says, and she looks up at him with an absolutely beaming expression that sends his heart straight to his toes.

"This is part of why I wanted to come here tonight," she says with a nod. "I've never seen them either. Like this."

"There's... so many _different_ reds in them, too," he says. "It's kind of incredible."

"It is. I… like the color red." Her fingers are threaded together, eyes downcast. "It's got a lot of depth."

Red is also the color his face is turning right now, and he turns from her so that she doesn't see its _depth_ any more clearly than she already can.

"You know…" Maka says as they start to walk away. "I heard that the FBI found the other pair."

Soul's stomach drops to his shoes again, though in a very different way than before. Hearing that acronym come out of her mouth makes guilt swallow him up completely, and he fights to keep focused on what she's saying.

"W-what do you mean?" he asks, but she doesn't seem to notice, focused on the story she's about to tell.

"Yeah!" She's excited. Apparently she finds the FBI exciting. "They tracked down a pair last year, and - here, wait, come back, let's look." She drags him back over to the shoes. "Oh, I _see,_ " she says, pointing. He doesn't see anything different, and he tells her so.

"No!" she says. "Okay, look at the slippers. Don't they look different from each other?"

He peers at the slippers again. "Oh. Yeah. I guess." He allows the guessing game to bring him back to the moment. One bow is bigger than the other, and one of them seems longer, he supposes.

"So apparently, there were originally two pairs of ruby slippers that were used in the movie," she says. "I read a book about it. The Smithsonian always knew that their shoes didn't match. And when they found those other shoes last summer, they matched them against the Smithsonian shoes, and they were _also_ mismatched! They found their mates, after all that time!" She beams up at him again. "Isn't that incredible?"

"That's…" Actually pretty neat. "Cool. I guess."

But something about the story doesn't sit right with him, and he can't explain why.

They make their way through the rest of the museum, but his mind keeps going back to the slippers, to the fact that the FBI recovered those shoes. He doesn't really get involved in the theft unit, but he wonders if he could figure out… where the second pair went off to.

The visit feels too short, even with a walk through the large and overcrowded bookshop to stave off his enthusiasm. He _hates_ gift shops, but Maka had enjoyed looking at all of the books, so that was kind of nice.

When they get back to the front of the museum, back to the front doors where he'd first seen her in the leather-jacket-and-skirt combination that will be the absolute death of him, she turns to face him in the slowly waning sunset, as stars start to sprinkle the sky.

"That was really fun," she says, and she's wearing a quiet smile now, one that is toying with his heart rate.

"Yeah. Was good," he agrees. "Lemme know if you wanna do another… museum… sometime."

"Another museum, huh?" she says, grin pulling up into her eyes. "Mm. I'd love to go to the Louvre someday, maybe. But that's a bit far."

"Oh, really?" he says. "I'd totally go there, too."

"...Really." She's got her hands on her hips now, skeptical. "You don't strike me as an art museum person."

"Definitely not," he assures her. "But the Louvre is where Weird Al found his... doppelganger..." He stops at the confused expression on Maka's face.

"Where who found his… what?" she asks.

"Oh my god," he says, a slow sort of horror dawning on his face, and his eyes light up as he asks the most important question he might ever ask her.

"Do you… do you not _know_ who Weird Al is?"

* * *

She's not sure whether it's good to be this passionate about someone who sings about the city of Albuquerque for eleven and a half minutes.

It's around noon the next day when Maka pulls her earbuds out of her ears, having been officially subjected to several of Weird Al's Greatest Hits.

She's got... opinions, and she pulls her phone out to text Soul, wondering how she's going to break this to him gently, but at that moment, a ping from her computer interrupts her, and she glances up to read what the notification says.

She'll have to text Soul later... because at that moment, something from the mysterious IP address finally comes up through one of her worms.

"What is…" She clicks, and then she is forced to double click, because in her excitement, she'd missed clicking it the first time.

"... What."

Her eyes scan the document that's just been sent, face flushing in anger as she reads what it says, but there's also a sense of triumph dwelling in her somewhere.

She's done it. She's found them out. Not _everything_ , maybe. But enough to work with. Enough to turn the tables.

She can't get the chat window open fast enough. She's jittery, and wired, but she's _ready_ , and with all of the determination of a general marching into battle, she opens Resonance and makes her declaration of war:

[[ I know who you are. ]]

* * *

The plot thickeneth. ;)

Thank you all so much for being here! Please leave me a comment if you're enjoying! Every single word of feedback is my literal lifeblood.

I want to let you all know that I'll be taking a small break from this story to finish up my Resbang story, so please be on the lookout for that - it'll post January 13, 2019!

But after that, it's straight back to my favorite little FBI soulmate story. I promise. I swear on my love of Weird Al's discography. In the meantime, thanks for reading. :)


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